


The Orion Window

by ArchitectMama



Category: Charmed
Genre: Gen, Original Future, changed future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9409688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchitectMama/pseuds/ArchitectMama
Summary: Set in the new future Chris helped create. Several months before his twenty-third birthday Chris begins having dreams where the world is in ruins and an evil Wyatt rules with an iron fist. The Charmed Ones and Leo knew there could be unforeseen consequences of the Original Chris's journey back in time, but when the timelines merge into one, how do they know who they can trust?(Also posted on fanfiction.net)





	1. Chapter I

The energy ball barely missed her as she dove behind a rock wall. _"This has got to work, please work..."_ she silently pleaded. Taking a deep breath, she smeared the blood-based concoction across her arm and jumped back into the fray.

 

The young witch was desperate, having grown up in a dark coven training as an assassin she knew the hierarchy of the Underworld and its quiet attempts to rebuild over the last two decades, but she wanted out. She hated the way she felt after taking out a target, the deep emptiness that settled on her. She hated the constant hunt and fear of becoming a target herself. And she really hated being just another assassin, just another tool to be used. Even though she was only in her mid-twenties, she was a powerful witch and a talented tracker and she knew she was meant for more. A few months ago though, on a tracking assignment, she confirmed her instincts and that’s when she had the idea.

 

She had been sent to recover a powerful athame that had been lost in a vanquish to a witch named Jude. Jude was young, near her own age and not terribly powerful on his own, but he happened to be close friends with those damn Halliwell brothers. Of course she knew the brothers by reputation, they were reported to be good-looking, powerful and cocky-as-hell, but she had never come up against them. After the brothers' mom and aunts had left the Underworld pretty well decimated about twenty years earlier, those who were smart started laying low, using their energies to rebuild rather than attack. The last few years though, she could sense attitudes beginning to change. Nomed had garnered enough powers and supporters to have some semblance of control. He was devious, patient and an acclaimed strategist, forging powerful alliances when it benefited him and betraying those same alliances when needed. It was Nomed who had sent her after the athame, it was reported to be a powerful tool for ritual blood magic and could channel enough power to open portals to other planes, none of this the witch who possessed it seemed to know.

 

She tracked Jude down, finding his energy signature glowing in a third-floor apartment in San Francisco one night. When he emerged into the night he was followed by two other young men. That was the moment that changed everything. Suddenly her perception turned in on itself, like the world was a t-shirt being turned inside out. Her vision blurred and all she could sense were the two vibrant energy signatures burning before her. The signatures were powerful, without any doubt, but they were clouded, a swirling of light and dark energies and inexplicably linked to one another. She put her hand out to steady herself but felt her breath catch as she was hit with a strange sensation, images and feelings began flooding her senses that had nothing to do with the current moment, followed by a sudden sense of clarity. She knew, finally, what she had to do and how she could get herself out of the demonic world.

 

She shimmered out to get the help she needed. Not long afterward she had tracked down the two energy signatures she was looking for and called for the low-level attack demons she had recruited. The attack hounds were really just a distraction, it worked and she was able to get to one of the brothers, the tall, blonde one, with enough time to secure some of his blood and shimmer herself the hell out of there, the athame and Jude completely forgotten.

 

It was his blood she hoped would help now. She needed to summon his whitelighter.

 

It wasn't long before abandoning her hiding spot that she was hit, she tried apportating the energy ball so that it hit her arm where Wyatt Halliwell's blood was smeared. It worked and she shimmered out of the Underworld and called.

 

"Brody! Kyle Brody! HELP!"

 

Nomed's trackers weren't far behind her. He wouldn't let her betrayal go unpunished. She called again for Brody.

 

_"Please work, this has to work!"_ she thought desperately.

 

Suddenly the air was filled with a musical sound as blue light swirled around close to her and a very confused Brody appeared.

 

"Who are you?" he questioned.

 

"No, time. I need your help, NOW!" Brody looked around, grabbed the witch and orbed out.

 

Once safely away, he began to heal her arm, still confused he looked her over and asked again, "Really, who are you?"

 

The witch looked up at him and sighed, "I need help. I have information for the Elders, but I need Charmed protection."

 

"Still doesn't tell me who the hell you are," Brody quipped.

 

"Bianca. My name's Bianca."


	2. Chapter II

"Damn it!" the dark-haired witchlighter exclaimed as his brother's blue orbs swirled into the room. Chris took off the VR headset he was wearing, agitated. He had been short-tempered a lot recently; during his last semester at school Chris had started freelancing as a game developer and decided to try freelancing full-time after he graduated. It made sense, he needed the flexible hours, especially with all the family emergencies he had to deal with. He had found over the last six weeks, however, that actually paying bills was getting pretty tough, even with the crazy hours he was working.

"God, Wyatt! Can't you just use the damn door like everyone else? I was in the middle of reprogramming that and now its all screwed up," Chris griped.

Wyatt, knowing how dramatic his brother tended to be when he was stressed, rolled his eyes. "I'm not the magical being who decided to pursue a career in programming. You knew what magic does to wireless, dude before you started this little business of yours," Wyatt said as he took off his camera bag and headed to the kitchen in search of food. "And don't start with the normal life, blah, blah, bullshit either," he added over his shoulder.

Wyatt had almost two years on Chris, so he'd had a little more time to adjust to the big bad world of adulthood and pesky responsibilities, like paying the light bill. Wyatt had spent his college years living in Washington, D.C. studying photojournalism and had scored a job at National Geographic directly afterward. Chris had no idea how Wyatt explained away his lack of expense reports though.

"Whatever," Chris started as he followed Wyatt to the kitchen. "You know we could work out a schedule, like on workdays no orbing in or something."

"Or you could work somewhere else," Wyatt said before chugging some milk directly from the carton. "This is my apartment too. And I'm the one who's been covering your rent the last two months anyway. I still don't understand why you passed up the teaching job Dad offered."

"Seriously, are you still sixteen?" Chris ignored his brother's last comment. He'd been through that argument with his family too many times. He had to admit, it was frustrating how overprotective his parents seemed to be and he didn’t understand why it was so difficult for them to let him do something completely on his own. They'd always been that way with him though: Wyatt got all the responsibility lectures while he got all the be careful lectures. Not that it wasn't warranted, Chris could be a lot more hot-headed and impulsive than Wyatt, especially when his emotions were running high. "Where have you been anyway? You smell like the zoo."

"Ethiopia."

"Assignment," Wyatt continued in response to his brother's blank stare. "Trying to get some images of the elusive African wild ass for the next issue," he laughed.

"Figures," Chris rolled his eyes, then laughed. "Seriously, you were stalking an animal called the African wild ass? Wow, I could go so many places with that one."

"Shut up, man. Actually though, something weird happened," Wyatt said, his tone turning serious. Wyatt tended to be pretty easy-going but Chris knew by his brother's subtle change of expression this wasn't the time for joking around.

"Weird? Weird like normal weird or our kind of weird?"

"Our kind of weird."

Chris sat on a stool at the kitchen island and waited for Wyatt to continue. The brother's had been dealing with their own "kind of weird" their entire lives, but even so it never became commonplace. Just the thought of a potential magical threat started both of their senses tingling. Their parents and aunts had never tried to hide too much from them, and based on the stories they grew up listening to, things on the magical front had been relatively peaceful. Their mom, Piper, could never fully relax though, she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and her boys unconsciously picked up her wary nervousness. It had been nothing short of a miracle that their family had had such a long reprieve- well, a miracle and the after-effects of the Charmed Ones near decimation of the entire Underworld two decades prior. Chris swallowed hard, trying to be patient as Wyatt started explaining.

"So its this desert, right? And not a lot of places to, you know, hide." Wyatt paused, thinking. "And its effing hot too. So I'm standing there, well actually crouching behind a scrub bush trying to get a good shot and I hear something behind me. And Chris, I sensed the whole area before I orbed in, I know there wasn't anything besides animals around. I know it. But I turn around and there's this crazy looking man. I mean crazy looking. Wearing this ratty turban and carrying this giant stick with all these weird... uh, things attached to it."

"Things?" Chris interrupted.

"Yeah, like I dunno, like animal shapes and stuff. And they were attached with strips of cloth or something so they dangled around it. I dunno," Wyatt shook his head, "I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the stick. The guy was old, I mean ancient looking and he walked like, well kind of like how you'd think a spider'd walk if it had two legs. And he comes straight over to me and gets these wild eyes and demands to know how I found him."

"What?" Chris exclaimed. "In English?"

"I don't know, no, no, I don't think so. But he's ranting about it, wanting to know how I found him and how he's been hidden from 'them' for so long and now 'they' send me to find him and it wasn't his fault, he was just messing around or something. Kept telling me he was playing a joke, he didn't mean any harm," Wyatt trailed off.

"That's it? I mean he just ranted at you and then what?" Chris pressed, hoping there wasn't more. Wyatt was obviously shaken by the encounter, but Chris noticed that he didn't appear to be hurt and didn't look like he'd gone through a battle.

"Oh, yeah he ranted and then," Wyatt started to laugh, "then he pointed at something behind me and yelled 'look!' So I did and when I turned around he was gone. Oldest trick in the book."

"Ok, yeah, that's definitely weird. You planning to tell Mom, or you think we should check it out first?" Chris asked.

"I was going to talk to Brody about it first, but I don't know where the hell he is," Wyatt griped.

Then both brothers cocked their heads, as if listening for something very faint.

"Oh shit."

"Family dinner." Wyatt said, looking down at his sweat stained clothing and shrugging.

"Sucks to be you," Chris laughed, but as he started to orb away he could hear the start of a spell "Let the object of objection..."

 

)0( )0( )0(

  
"Did you two forget? You forgot." Piper sighed, pursing her lips and looking at her grown-up sons. Motherhood had been good to Piper, so had a slightly quieter life. There were times though, raising three kids, that she’d almost have preferred dealing with demons, especially the days when her two extremely powerful sons were at odds with one another. Before the boys learned basic control of their powers she had to stop counting the number of times she’d run to their room only to find Wyatt behind his shield, Chris angry and crying and scorch marks on the wall. Chris had inherited an array of Elder powers from his father, which evened the playing field between him and his Twice-Blessed older brother. As far as anyone knew, Wyatt and Chris, independent of each other, were the most powerful magical beings in known history. Piper and Leo liked to downplay that as much as they could though, and so far in the boys’ lives their powers hadn’t been truly tested or put on full display, and for that she was grateful.

"No, Mom, we didn't forget..."

"Of course not..."

"It's just that... well, Wyatt was late..."

Wyatt shot Chris a pointed look, telling him to shut up, but not without Piper noticing. She was used to their banter and smiled a little thinking about how easily they could push each other’s buttons.

"Ok, fess up, what happened?" she demanded.

"Nothing really..." Wyatt began, while his mom eyed him warily.

Just then, a young, dark haired witch walked out of the kitchen carrying a stack of plates, with her father just behind her.

"Oh, right Dad, just because you've seen like ten decades of fashion trends come and go does not make you an expert," Melinda joked. "Oh! You guys made it! Mom, quit giving them the third degree. Chris, run get the glasses, will you? And Wy, can you grab the napkins?"

The brothers rushed to follow Melinda’s orders. Despite being the youngest of three siblings, Melly was a force to be reckoned with- typical of all Halliwell women. She was almost an exact replica of her mother, with dark hair and dark eyes but her face was shaped more like her father and Wyatt. She, along with three of her cousins, turned 20 this year. Leo shook his head as he followed her out of the kitchen, wondering how his little girl had turned into a grown woman so quickly.

"You aren't getting off that easy, mister." Piper began as her children were setting the table. "Really Wyatt, what happened?"

"Something happened?" Leo shot a worried glance at Chris, then shared a concerned look with Piper. They’d been doing that a lot recently, much to Chris’s annoyance. It seemed the last few months his parents were somehow getting more paranoid and overprotective of him. "A demon?"

"No, Dad, I don't think so. It was, well, it was just weird," Wyatt said. After throwing a glare at his brother he proceeded to tell his parents and sister about the strange experience with the unknown man in Ethiopia.

Piper and Leo looked thoughtful for a moment, then looking at Leo, Piper said "Well, sounds like you just ran into a wacko, honey. Strange, though..." she trailed off and looked at Leo again.

The siblings all eyed each other, their parents were definitely acting off, very off.

"So, maybe we should just eat then, huh? I'm starving," Chris said, breaking the silence and hoping to avoid any more not-so-subtle worried looks from his parents. Why did they keep looking at him as if he was about to shoot fire out of his eyes? It was Wyatt who met the crazy man, not him.

Piper jumped a little, "Oh! Yes, right, I'll just go grab..." But she was cut off by the sound of orbing and Kyle Brody appeared, with a young witch at his side.

"Brody!" Wyatt exclaimed. "Where have you been? I've been calling you!"

Brody quickly looked Wyatt over, "I see you're not hurt. I was with the Elders actually." He paused briefly, looking back at the young woman standing a step behind him. "Piper, they've actually got an assignment for you and your sisters."

"What? You have got to be kidding me!" Piper's voice rose. "The Charmed Ones are not supposed to have assignments any more Kyle. The Charmed Ones are handing the reigns over to their children, remember? The Charmed Ones are retiring," she ground out, getting more and more angry with each word.

Brody's hands went up in a gesture of surrender, "Look, I know, I know. But, well... she needs protection. And she's got quite a lot of useful information." Brody looked pleadingly at Piper. He had a long, and to be hones, quite tiresome history with the Halliwell family. How on earth the Elders thought it appropriate for him to be assigned to any of the Halliwells given his relationship with Paige just prior to his death, he would never figure out. It wasn’t until Wyatt, Chris and Melinda were in their teens that they became Brody’s charges, before that the Elders trusted their parents to guide them. During their adolescence though, the Elders thought it best to bring in an outside, non-Halliwell influence, thus putting Brody smack dab in the middle of countless Halliwell-family disputes.

Piper surreptitiously studied the woman, she looked vaguely familiar but Piper couldn't place her. "If this is another Seer with visions tricking us into siding with those tyrannical Avatars again..."

The three young Halliwells started laughing behind their hands. "He really shouldn't let her get started," Wyatt whispered.

"Yeah, you’ve got to head her off before she really gets going," Chris added. "She only gets worse and harder to stop..."

"And then KERR-PLOOH," Melinda added, using her hands to mimic the gesture Piper used when blowing things up. The siblings’ laughter really exploded then and Piper turned to see what was going on.

"And what is so funny?" She asked curtly. Her only response was more laughter.

Brody took advantage of Piper's distraction, "Can you call your sisters? I'd rather go over everything with all of you only once."

Defeated, Piper sighed "fine, I'll call them. You two might as well sit and eat something while you're here."

_"Typical no-nonsense Brody fashion,"_ Chris thought to himself. When Kyle Brody was first assigned to Piper Halliwell's children, the teenaged brothers would compete to see who could get the straight-laced whitelighter to crack a smile. Unfortunately, Brody never found any of their practical jokes very funny. The whitelighter did seem to have a soft spot for Melinda though, but that could have just been because she never tested experimental potions on him.

Leo stood up, shuffling chairs around, and began introducing everyone to the newcomer. "Sorry about that, Piper, well, my wife guards her family time. And I'm Leo, these are our kids: Wyatt, Chris and Melinda."

"Ok, they're..." Piper was cut off on her way back into the dining room by the sound of orbs. "On their way. Hey, guess who has an assignment?" She finished with false perkiness.

Phoebe and Paige looked at Brody, annoyance evident on their faces.

"Well?" Paige asked.

Brody took a sharp breath and crossed his arms. "The Elders want you three to protect her in exchange for information and her help," he paused, looking at Bianca then at the three sisters. When they didn't immediately protest, he continued. "She is a Phoenix and she came to me..."

But Piper, Phoebe and Paige didn't hear the rest of what Brody was saying; they had just recognized the woman.

"... her name is Bianca. And the Elders... and, I mean, I think she really does have information that will help you, help us. They've questioned her and agree that her motives are pure."

"Kitchen, now." Piper said, motioning to her sisters and husband.

Bianca watched the Charmed Ones disappear with Leo into the kitchen, then nervously looked around, catching Wyatt's eye. As a trained assassin, she had spent years perfecting her tracking skills, unlike other predators who caught a scent and followed it, she was able to sense the unique energy signatures of her targets and track them down. Everyone, magical and non-magical beings alike, had an energy signature, almost like a vibrational imprint on the atmosphere around them. She didn’t view energies as good or bad, they just were. She knew there were volumes of magical theory out there regarding energy reading, but she thought most of it was just a bunch of nonsense, attempts at classifying something that was beyond classification. The energy signatures of the two brothers before her had her baffled though, she’d never seen anything like it. She remembered the intensity from the first night she came across them, when she was tracking their friend Jude, and now, here in their family home, it was just as intense. So intense it threatened to pull her in to the trance-like state she had experienced the first time she encountered it.

She remembered how strange it was that night, she felt like she had been hit by car or TKd across a room. When she came upon them she had been in full tracking mode, allowing her senses to be completely open, so their powerful signatures had hit her with an almost physical force. The two signatures, with their swirling chaos of light and dark seemed to be on the brink of something, something that could go terribly, terribly wrong or wonderfully right. She’d always thought she was meant for something more than taking orders from demons and doing their dirty work- even if it did come with perks like Prada and Teslas. This was it, she knew it immediately. She was supposed to be here, with these two brothers to help make sure that terrible wrongness didn’t happen. Now she just had to wait and see if the sisters would accept her offer to help and give her the protection she needed.


	3. Chapter III

“So, that _is_ Bianca, right?” Phoebe started, looking at her sisters and brother-in-law after the kitchen door closed behind them. “I mean the Bianca, we’re all sure about that?”

Piper sat heavily down at the breakfast table, staring off into space, her hand over her chest. She looked wistfully up, speaking as if the very words were painful. “We knew there was a chance of this… Oh god, Leo! What, what if…”

Leo quickly moved to embrace his wife and she crumpled in his arms. “I can’t lose him again, I can’t, I can’t do it,” she cried. The sudden appearance of Bianca, a woman they had met twenty-three years ago when she was sent back in time by a future evil Wyatt, shook Piper to her very core. Piper was terrified that Bianca appearing in their lives could signal an unchangeable destiny for Chris, a destiny she and Leo had been working to change from the moment his future self died in his father’s arms while his present self was taking his first breaths cradled in his mother’s.

“Oh, honey, we know,” Phoebe sympathized. “We know, we know. None of us want that, we aren’t going to let it happen Piper.”

“And besides,” Paige broke in. “We’ve got oodles of antidote to Gideon’s poison mixed up, and two very powerful healers in the other room. We’ve talked through this so many times, Piper. If something happens we can fix it, we can stop it. We aren’t going to let Chris die again.”

Piper looked up at her sisters, the panic starting to subside. “Phoebe,” she swallowed hard, “did you get a read on her at all?”

“Oooh, not really, let me poke out there and see,” she replied, bouncing to the kitchen door and quietly popping her head through the cracked door. She made a little squeal of surprise, then turned around, raising her eyebrows and walking back to the breakfast table.

“Well?” Piper questioned.

Phoebe looked a little uncomfortable, eyebrows still raised in surprise. “Well…” she laughed nervously.

“Oh, c’mon woman,” Paige crossed her arms impatiently, “just spit it out already. Is this Bianca evil?”

“What? Oh, no, no,” Phoebe said distractedly. “Not evil, well, I mean her intent is good at least. She does sincerely want to help…”

“So then what is it Phoebe?” Leo asked, also getting impatient.

Phoebe grinned. “Well, it’s a bit weird telling you this, he is your son and she… well…” She laughed nervously again.  
“C’mon, Phoebe,” Piper interrupted. “Obviously we know that, they were engaged in the original future.”

“Oh, nope, that’s not it,” Phoebe said excitedly, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. “Its not Chris. Not Chris... she’s decidedly attracted to Wyatt.”

)0( )0( )0(

 

Bianca watched nervously as the Charmed Ones and Leo disappeared into the kitchen. She had too much riding on this, on their decision. Eventually she’d be able to cover her tracks on her own and stay off of Nomed’s radar, but right now, everything was too fresh and she had no resources, no friends, no support network, nothing.

The three siblings watched Bianca warily. Wyatt, taking in her anxious demeanor, thought she was quite beautiful, though she couldn’t possibly have literally grown up in the Underworld. He knew Melinda was carefully assessing Bianca’s clothing, his sister was probably even mentally adding up how much each item cost. Imagining how uneasy Bianca must be and ever the amiable host, Wyatt cast around for something to ease the group into a casual conversation.

“So, you’re a Phoenix, huh?” Wyatt started. Bianca just looked sharply at him. “Where are you from?”

“Here, I grew up here,” Bianca replied, shortly.

Wyatt looked to Chris and Melinda, neither of which seemed inclined to help out the conversation. Irritated, he tried again. “San Fran, huh? I didn’t think you had grown up in the Underworld,” he smirked.

Bianca laughed, “No, no I didn’t. Is it that obvious?”

“Well, yeah,” Wyatt continued, eager to keep talking. “I mean I’m sure you’ve noticed demons’ nearly overwhelming lack of hygiene and rather stilted fashion sense. Seriously, most of them dress like they’re starring in some S&M flick.” Chris snorted and rolled his eyes causing Wyatt to blush as he realized bondage references probably weren’t the most appropriate method of putting a beautiful new acquaintance at ease.

Bianca erupted in a hearty laugh though as she noticed the slight blush that spread across Wyatt’s cheeks. Powerful or not, this man was adorable she thought. Wyatt was able to draw her out of her anxiety and get her laughing. It didn’t take long for Melinda to join in the conversation as well as the siblings listened to Bianca talk about her life growing up as a Phoenix. It somehow felt so natural and before she realized it she was confessing her deepest misgivings regarding her actions as a hired assassin, her regret over the lives she’d taken. She looked up sharply as Chris snorted in disbelief at her last remark.

“Seriously?” Chris questioned. “You guys cannot seriously be buying this?” He asked Wyatt and Melinda. “Whoever heard of a Phoenix going good?”

“And whoever heard of a Halliwell with manners,” she snapped back. “But your brother here seems to have proven that wrong.” Wyatt smirked at Bianca’s deft handling of his brother. He was going to have to be careful around this vivacious young witch he was realizing. She was charming, funny and her easy vulnerability with him gave him a sense of connectedness that he hadn’t felt with a woman in years. Yes, he definitely needed to be on his guard.

Just then, the sisters and Leo came marching out of the kitchen and Bianca visibly tensed again.

“Well?” Brody stepped forward, looking at the sisters.

Piper took a deep breath, speaking on everyone’s behalf, “Yes, Kyle. We’ll give her the protection she needs in exchange for her information… but first we’re all going to eat.”

)0( )0( )0(

 

Chris wanted to continue voicing his concerns during dinner, but he knew when to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t know what game his mom and aunts were playing at, how could they so easily trust this woman? He sure as hell wasn’t going to trust her, at least not very easily. Chris had always held himself and everyone around him to a high standard. He took his responsibility as a Halliwell very seriously and was incredibly aware of how important it was for him, and his family, to make the right choice over and over and over again. Living over a Nexus could have that affect on you; power could so easily be swayed for good or for evil and it could be the smallest of seemingly innocent choices that could lead a magical being to evil.

As dinner conversation began to wind down and plans for the following day were made, Bianca suddenly tensed again.

“Oh god, I… I…” she started, looking at Wyatt and Chris. “I lost track of time, your friend, Jude, Nomed will be going after him, he’s got this athame…”

Chris shot up, orbing out immediately with Wyatt close behind, leaving Bianca apologizing to their family.

He didn’t even bother sensing for anyone in Jude’s apartment, so when he and his brother solidified in the middle of Jude's living room, Chris sheepishly realized they’d interrupted a date.

Jude jumped up off the couch, “What the hell man?”

His girlfriend, Carrie, turned bright red as she straightened out her clothing and sat up.

“Oi, sorry dude,” Chris grimaced while Wyatt rolled his eyes. For someone as OCD as Chris could be it was astounding how reckless he was when his emotional triggers were set off.

“Yeah, sorry,” Wyatt started. “We just got tipped off…”

Wyatt didn’t finish his sentence; he was cut short, ducking an energy ball as five demons shimmered into the apartment. He and Chris instinctively sprang into action, putting themselves between Jude and Carrie. They would only have the upper hand for a few moments while the surprised demons restrategized their attack. Wyatt attacked first, and within seconds the small apartment was a blur of energy balls, orb lights and sizzling jolts of electricity. Carrie ran for cover as Jude apportated the sought-after athame, throwing it with deadly accuracy at the demon closest to him, then joined Wyatt who was battling two demons both physically and magically. Chris had TKd one of the demons, throwing him against wall and immobilizing him for a few precious seconds. Turning, one of the remaining demons started to shoot an energy ball at him, but Chris was able to focus his own power and TK the lethal ball back on to its creator, erupting in an explosion of flames and pain. He glanced over just in time to see Wyatt, who was pinned beneath his attacker, orb Jude’s athame into his hands and stab the demon in the heart, causing him to scream in agony and disappear. The demon Chris had previously knocked out came to and the brothers moved to capture the two remaining demons, but not quickly enough. The demons realized they were on the losing side and both quickly shimmered away without a trace.

“Ok, never mind,” Jude breathed out. “Good timing. Thanks.”

Carrie peered around the bedroom door frame before emerging to the living room. “That wasn’t a random demon attack, was it?”

“No,” Chris started. “We really were tipped off, evidently the new leader of the Underworld is after Jude, but, uh… well I didn’t stay around long enough to actually find out why exactly.”

“Yeah, you two should come back to the Manor with us, at least until we get some more answers,” Wyatt said as he and Chris moved to orb back to their family home with Jude and Carrie in-tow.

The brothers were met with an anxious look from their mother as they materialized in the family living room. Piper barely restrained herself when she saw the blood, torn, singed clothing and angry red burns on her sons. “Kyle! Healing, we need some healing over here!” She shouted trying to siphon off her anxiety. Brody sprinted across the room to heal the brothers and Jude before Piper could explode anything.

 


	4. Chapter IV

_An agonized scream escaped from Chris as the jolt of purple energy surged through his body. After a few seconds the most intense pain subsided, leaving an aching numbness that reached into his very bones. He could feel something wet and warm trickling down his face as he curled his knees into his chest, the dirt of the floor beneath his cheek mixing with his sweat and blood._

_“Its for his own good,” he heard Wyatt’s voice murmur in the distance. “Lock him back up Tam and make sure he isn’t dead yet.”_

_Chris clenched his jaw and opened his eyes enough to catch a glimpse of his older brother marching away. Tam looked down at him, a look of mingled concern and disgust on her pale face._

_“God, Chris,” she started. She checked his breathing and rolled him over, squeezing a dirty, wet rag over his face to give him a little water. He coughed and tried sitting up, slouching against the rough concrete wall. “He will eventually get tired of you defying him you know.”_

_Chris glared in response._

_Tamora sighed, “Honestly, you can’t deny he’s got a point. All this fighting, it will never end. At least… at least with Wyatt we’ll be on the winning team.”_

_“How can you…” Chris began coughing again and Tam handed him the water bowl. He tried to drink a little and his cousin began using the damp rag to clean some of the blood off of his face. Chris pulled away from her touch, wincing in pain. “How can you defend him? After… after he killed them?” He saw the flash of grief that passed over Tam’s face before she could mask her emotions._

_“They were weak Chris, you know that. They were a liability, always being used against us. We’re safer without them,” she said coldly._

_Chris shook his head, “A liability? He killed your dad! Your brother! And you're here following his orders, enforcing his reign of terror.” He started coughing again, pain wracking his body._

_“If you keep this up Chris, he will kill you,” Tam said, leaving the cell and both physically and magically locking it before storming out of the dark prison._

_Chris let out a long, painful breath, leaning his head back against the wall. The dungeon reeked of urine and blood. He tried sensing for other life around him, but he was blocked. Of course Wyatt would take all necessary precautions before throwing him down here. How could he have been so careless? Wyatt should not have been able to catch him this time. All the weeks of careful planning, losing two spies, and not to mention that painful not-quite healed stab wound in his side, all for nothing. The Resistance was no closer to taking back any of the ground they had lost. Chris yelled in frustration, then winced as pain ricocheted through his broken body._

_Just then Chris caught a small flash out of the corner of his eye. He looked over his shoulder and saw a single red-orange feather float down to the ground. He smiled and watched the feather glow red-hot like an ember, sucking in the air around it until it popped and fizzled like a tiny firecracker, leaving a singed sheet of paper in its place. Chris reached over and saw a spell hastily written out in familiar loopy cursive. He breathed in, clearing his mind focusing his intent and gathering energy from the space around him. With a surge of power he chanted:_

_Water and Earth, hear my plea,_  
Eastern Sun warm this cell,  
Northern Wind come to me  
And free this captured Halliwell.

_He rolled his eyes, ‘always so, so… witchy’ he thought with a smirk as a hairline crack began to form in the wall. He watched, still focusing his power and intent, willing the crack to continue growing. Soon the line had formed a large circle on the wall and he watched as the concrete began to shimmer slightly. It looked as if the rock-hard material was separating into its original elements, the water pulling away from the cement and pooling on the floor. A soft breeze flitted into the cell, scattering the cement ash and granules; Chris had to cover his face with his arm to avoid breathing in the particles. Beyond the wall he saw the compacted earth that had already begun shifting, gradually sloping up to the ground above._

_After a moment’s hesitation, he looked back at the darkness of the cell then gathered what was left of his strength and crawled through the opening in the cool earth. As he went he could feel the wall closing back, the earth moving back into place behind him. A soft hand grabbed his arm as soon as he pushed it through to the fresh air above and helped him scramble out of the quickly closing tunnel. Chris swayed as he tried to stand, but the woman grabbed him, holding him steady._

_“Alright there Raven?” She asked._

_“Thanks,” he said, grabbing her and pulling her into a strong embrace. He was too weak to stand on his own, even too weak to orb. The woman pulled back, looking at him, searching his eyes, concern and fear flashing through her own._

_“C’mon, I’ll get you back to headquarters,” she said as she shimmered the two of them to safety._

_Bianca._

_Bianca_ , Chris thought, startling himself awake. He sat bolt upright, eyes roving his room for any danger, then leaned heavily against his headboard rubbing his face with his palm. It took him a few minutes to gather his thoughts and realize that he had been dreaming. At least he thought it was dream. It felt strangely real though, his body seemed to ache with phantom pain and his stomach turned as he remembered the smells. And Bianca. Why would Bianca be rescuing him? And Tam… and Uncle Henry and Junior… and… his mind reeled… Wyatt.

  
Wyatt had killed them, Wyatt had _tortured_ him. What kind of whacked out dream was that? Chris shook his head and tried to push the unsettling images from his mind. He needed coffee, lots of coffee. After all, it was just a dream.

 

)0( )0( )0(

 

Paige was pacing in the Manor attic, looking at the floor and occasionally talking out loud to herself. Not paying any attention she nearly walked right through the swirl of blue orbs that had just appeared and quickly materialized into her two nephews. She stopped short, only a few inches from Wyatt’s shoulder. “Geez, can’t you orb, you know, not directly on top of people?” she grouched.

Piper’s head popped up, she was flipping through the Book of Shadows with Bianca. Piper had been trying not worry herself sick all morning. She and Leo had stayed up late talking through everything, worry over Chris’s possible destiny plaguing them both.

“Well, its about time you two showed up,” Piper exclaimed. “I’ve had nearly every one of your cousins through this morning, Phoebe’s already gone through about six cups of coffee and your Aunt Paige, well, Leo might have to replace those floor boards she’s worn down.”

“Sorry Mom,” Chris said as he walked over to give her a quick hug. “I overslept, trouble sleeping last night.” Piper looked sharply at her youngest son, quickly noting the circles under his eyes indicative of a restless night.

“And I was trying to prioritize my focus: weird spidery-Ethiopian or imminent demon uprising, hmmm…” Wyatt quipped. “I think my spider-man might move to the back burner.”

Bianca smiled tightly, still looking at the Book. “We’ll have to get you two up to speed, I’ve already shared the basics of what I know with everyone else,” she said, looking up at Wyatt.

“Cliff Notes version,” Paige started. “About, oh, twenty years ago we teamed up with a skeezy demon named Nomed to take out the Triad.” Chris and Wyatt nodded their understanding, then laughed. The sisters looked at them, alarmed.

“Uh, yeah, that was last year for us, remember?” Chris prompted. “We were there during all of that, babysitting our mini-selves.”

Paige face palmed and shook her head, “I hate time travel.” She took a breath and continued, “So yeah, Nomed has been organizing all this time. According to Bianca he’s been garnering powers from the Wasteland and rebuilding the demonic hierarchies. Currently he’s been sending out his best assassins to find and capture ancient magical relics—like that athame Jude had.”

“Magical relics?” Wyatt asked, looking concerned.

“Yeah,” Bianca answered. “I don’t know what all he’s after though. I know he’s recovered some of the relics he was hunting. He has them well protected and away from prying eyes. I was part of the team to recover a large block of stone from the middle of Ireland and I’ve heard rumors about a large cauldron and a spear of fire, but that’s all I know.”

“What does the stone do?” Chris asked Bianca. He was still suspicious of Bianca, but also a little weirded out after the dream he’d had. He looked at her warily. She looked so much like the Bianca in his dream, but not exactly the same. The Bianca before him, strangely enough, didn’t seem as anxious; she was softer somehow. The Bianca in his dream seemed hardened almost like a war veteran. Then again, so was he. The dream version of himself was able to push through the pain, pain like he’d never experienced in real life before.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Nomed’s been pretty tight lipped about everything.”

“Your dad headed to Magic School to search the library, there has to be some sort of a connection between the objects he’s looking for,” Piper added. “And Bianca’s helping us update our demon entries over here.”

“So, where do we need to focus?” Wyatt asked.

“Well, I’m glad you asked,” Phoebe said, walking through the attic door dressed in gym clothes. Chris and Wyatt spun around, looking at her quizzically. She continued, “We’re going to start some training sessions with all of you.”

“I’m guessing these aren’t your typical Wiccan training sessions are they?” Chris asked, smirking.

“No, smart-ass,” Phoebe started. “I’ll be doing martial arts training with you all, your dad is going to handle the heavy duty battle training and general warfare strategies and your Uncle Henry is chipping in on self-defense.”

“You guys are serious,” Wyatt said, dumbfounded. He’d never seen his family this worried about anything. Sure, they’d had their share of demonic activity over the years and he and Chris had gotten into some tight scrapes, but this was an entirely new level. Battle training? Warfare strategy? “But, since when is Dad a warfare expert?”

Piper laughed, “He was a soldier, you know.”

“And Valhalla, he learned a lot there,” Chris blurted out, then looked confused. Piper gasped and Paige and Phoebe went slack jawed.

“Valhalla?” Piper asked nervously. “What do you mean Valhalla?” Chris and Wyatt knew nothing about the year the Original Chris spent in the past, why would Chris suddenly mention Valhalla?

“Uh…” Chris was genuinely confused. “I have no idea where that came from.” Wyatt was looking at him strangely, actually everyone was looking at him strangely. “Ok… so, what’s Valhalla?”

“Nothing really,” Phoebe started. “It’s a magical island where warriors spend their afterlife training for the final battle between good and evil.”

“And Leo spent some time there actually,” Paige added. “Before you were born.”

“But,” Piper continued, “I don’t think we’ve ever told you about that.”

Chris looked at his aunts and mom, seeing the sudden fear in their eyes and not understanding the extreme reaction. He just shrugged, “You must have, or I saw it in the Book or something.”

After a few tense moments Phoebe broke the silence, “Well, no matter, you two better get changed and then meet me in the basement. I’m about to kick both your asses kiddos.”

 


	5. Chapter V

“OW!” Wyatt yelled, his hand reflexively covering his face as he pulled away from Phoebe’s spin kick. “That’s my nose! Geez Aunt Pheebs.” He sniffed and shook his head a couple times to try and mitigate the pain. They’d been at these training sessions for a couple weeks now and Wyatt was really wishing he had stayed with that Ju-Jitsu class instead of playing Little League as a kid. Phoebe insisted all the cousins learn to fight without relying so heavily on their powers. Which was all well and good for the _girls_ , Wyatt thought, it wasn’t like his cupid cousins would be able love the demons to death anyway.

“I felt that mister!” PJ yelled from behind him, letting her guard down while sparring with Bianca just long enough to get smacked in the shins.

“Oh my god.” Phoebe rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to let her annoyance at her daughter and nephew break through. “Look, all of you,” she raised her voice to get all the sparring partners’ attention. “I know you all think we’re being a bunch of hard asses. I know. But you kids haven’t been through this yet, and I’m sorry, we got too relaxed and let this slide for so long. But… but,” she struggled, words from one of her own training sessions flooding her memory. “Demons worship strength, power. Nothing else. To beat them you have to channel all of your energy into your strength. Including pain. All of you, you need to learn to fight like a demon.” She closed her eyes and walked off, _Thank you Cole_ , she thought.

“She’s right,” Bianca said, all eyes immediately looking to her.

“Yeah, but I don’t see why we’ve got to focus so much on physical fighting.” Wyatt griped, he had never realized just how much he relied on his powers to get him through his encounters with demons and wasn’t very comfortable with this method of training. He could hear Chris taunting him, ‘ _evidently you’re a lover, not a fighter Wy’_. Chris had been mercilessly teasing him since it became evident that the oldest of the Halliwell children wasn’t outshining everyone else as usual.

“I mean,” Wyatt continued, “what are the chances of us losing our powers any--?”

Before he could finish his question, Bianca had shimmered behind him and thrust her fist through his back, stripping him of his powers. Chris started to react but Leo put his arm on his shoulder, keeping him in place. The cousins watched, horrified, not knowing what the Phoenix was doing. After a few seconds, Wyatt fell to the ground.

“What the hell?” He asked her, rubbing his chest and breathing heavily.

She lifted her hand holding a brightly glowing sphere and raised her eyebrows. “Chances of losing your powers? I’d say they’re pretty good. Now hold still.” She reached back down, thrusting the sphere back into Wyatt.

“Ok…” Wyatt breathed deeply. “Point taken.”

“Ok,” Phoebe broke the astonished silence. “Wyatt take a break, Chris bring some water down and everyone else, grab a weapon and switch partners.”

A few minutes later Chris sat down on the basement steps next to Wyatt, handing him a bottled water. They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching their family spar as their aunt and dad filtered around correcting stances and giving advice.

“Look man,” Chris started, “I didn’t mean to…”

“I know, it’s fine,” Wyatt interrupted his brother. “No chick flick moments needed, dude.”

Chris took a deep breath. “If things end up being as rough as they think…,” he paused, knowing what he needed to say but worried about Wyatt’s reaction. “You can’t save everyone Wy, you just can’t, no matter how powerful you are.”

Wyatt’s eyes darkened for a moment before he took another long drink of water. “I know Chris,” he finally said. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t try.”

After finishing his second pass through, Leo made his way to his boys. “You ok, Wyatt?” he asked. Wyatt half-smirked and nodded.

“Hey Dad,” Chris looked sharply at Leo. “How’d you know what she was doing?”

Leo crossed his arms and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “I’ve come across Phoenix before, and well I’ve seen the after-effects of their brand of power-stripping too,” he answered, looking past Chris, lost in an old memory.

“Well, whatever that was,” Wyatt smiled, his eyes twinkling with mischief, “it was pretty hot.”

That comment brought Leo out of his reverie, he looked at Wyatt, shocked while Chris just laughed and shook his head. “What?” Wyatt asked. “It was. A woman who can take me down like that?” He snapped his fingers for emphasis, “just sayin’”

Chris worried his bottom lip and looked across the room at Bianca. He’d had several more dreams recently, dreams where Bianca often featured. The dreams were so vivid, they seemed so real but he couldn’t understand them. The first dream had been the most intense though, the rest of them had just been snippets of moments really, none of which seemed to make sense or have any real context. He hadn’t told anyone about them, not even Brody or Wyatt; he wanted to try and figure out some more about them on his own first before alarming everyone else.

“You know,” Chris began, trying to shake the dreams out of his mind, “we do need to start being more strategic about all of this. I was thinking, what if we mapped out the Underworld? Really mapped it out, we could start pinpointing key locations, noting where the power bases are and plan some offensive attacks. Get ahead of these guys.” The idea had actually come from one of his dreams, but he wasn’t going to admit that.

Leo looked at his son suspiciously, while Wyatt gaped “You’re a fuu-riggin’ genius dude!”

“That really is a good idea, Chris,” Leo said calmly, still looking at Chris as if trying to read into his mind. Chris turned away from his dad, this had been going on for weeks now: he’d have an insight into something or reference places and events that he didn’t know how he knew about and his parents and aunts would just look at him with this strange expression, like they were trying to figure out who he was. It was getting pretty frustrating to say the least and he didn’t feel like sitting there while his dad looked at him like he was a stranger.

“No, no, no,” Chris blurted out, standing up. “Mel’s got that form all wrong.” It seemed a valid excuse to exit the conversation with his dad and brother, so he hurried over to his sister to start correcting her stance.

Wyatt looked over at his dad, then back to his brother. “Have we checked to see if he was like General Patton or the Duke of Wellington in a past life?”

Leo chuckled at Wyatt’s remark, but Wyatt continued. “No, I’m serious, where does he come up with this stuff?”

“Probably all those hours playing XCOM and whatever other war games you two were always into,” Leo smiled, trying to come up with a plausible explanation… at least an explanation that didn’t confirm his growing fears about both his sons’ destinies. “And, this is kind of what he does too, doesn’t he research strategy tactics for the projects he works on?”

Wyatt shrugged his shoulders, still thinking. “Yeah, but… have you noticed how he’s been using his powers lately too?”

Leo’s jaw tensed and he glanced over at Chris, remembering the telekinetic feat the young man had performed a few days ago during a training session. They had summoned Prue specifically to work with Chris since he always had more success channeling his power in the same ways she did, unlike his siblings and Aunt Paige. They were up in the attic, sans the rest of the extended family, working on power-focusing under pressure. Prue and Chris had been doing various TK exercises, practicing using hand gestures as well as eye movements for a little while when Wyatt suggested they try something more strenuous. Piper pulled out the old demon leftovers box and she and Prue combined their powers to create an obstacle course of moving objects for the three siblings to deflect. Things quickly got a bit chaotic and a rogue mace went off course, zooming towards Piper who instinctively blew it up without thinking. The shards of the mace would have flown everywhere, like thousands of deadly bullets, but Chris threw his hands up in a gesture his siblings had never seen and the shards stopped dead in their tracks, not frozen but stuck as if they had hit a solid wall. Chris gestured again and they hovered a second and then fell to the ground. Everyone looked at Chris, shock clearly evident on their faces, and he looked equally as shocked.

“How did you…?” Melly tentatively asked, trailing off.

Chris looked blankly around, “Uh, I, uh…”

“Did you manipulate the air particles?” Leo asked, looking meaningfully at Piper. They’d seen this done before, by another version of Chris, a Chris who wasn’t born with Elder powers to boost his Wiccan side, a Chris who was constantly relying on his wits to try and even the playing field between himself and his drastically more powerful older brother.

Chris looked at his dad, thinking. “Yeah…” he said hesitantly. “Yeah, I think that’s exactly what I did.” He paused, thinking some more, then started mumbling something about fluid dynamics. “Wow, I can’t believe I never thought of that before. Do you know how much less energy that takes than stopping and reversing the force? Cool.” He finished, smiling.

Leo brought his focus back to the present, looking at Wyatt. “I’ve noticed some… differences, yes,” he admitted.

“And not only the crazy TK stuff either, he usually taps into all those Elder powers just instinctually, and he hasn’t been recently. I don’t know, maybe all the extra stress is getting to him.” Wyatt had noticed all the strange looks directed at Chris recently too and was growing more and more suspicious that his parents and aunts were hiding something from them. He hadn’t been planning to bring the conversation up with anyone, but since the opportunity presented itself, he figured he might as well go for it and see if his dad would let anything slip.

“Have you talked to him about it?” Leo questioned.

“Are you kidding?” Wyatt laughed. “Talk to Mr-Mind-Your-Own-Business? You know Chris only talks when he wants to talk and it’s a waste of energy to try and drag anything out of him, it’s like talking to a wall. Secretive little punk, you know how he is.”

Leo nodded, yes he did know and it seemed in either timeline Chris was still Chris. He could almost hear his younger son spouting off ‘ _future consequences_ ’ while rolling his eyes and ignoring him. It didn’t ease his mind any though. It was becoming glaringly obvious that Chris was accessing memories from a life he never lived and the young man had no idea what was happening. Leo watched as Wyatt took advantage of a lull in the sparring practice to walk over and flirt with Bianca. He and Piper were wondering how that particular issue might play out, maybe he should tell Wyatt to back off… he sighed, again hearing his son’s voice echo in his memory, ‘ _future consequences.’_

 

)0( )0( )0(

 

_He was leaning over a large hand drawn map, studying the notes scribbled here and there, looking at the locations of the colored pieces intentionally placed in various regions. There had to be a pattern, his brother wasn’t stupid, he just couldn’t see the pattern yet. Lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard the door open and the footsteps of several people walking into the room._

_“Ahem,” Devren coughed. “Raven?”_

_Chris jumped a little, surprised, and looked up to see the darklighter standing in front of him, holding onto a woman dressed in black leather, Tielden holding on to her other side, still in his demonic form. The woman’s chin was jutted out in defiance, her dark eyes ablaze with fury._

_“How dare you! How dare you! Who do you people think you are anyway?” She yelled._

_Chris looked at Devren and Tielden in turn, questioning them with his expression. The irony of a darklighter and a demon being two of his most trusted companions was never lost on him, but since the entire world went to hell, well, enemy lines had gotten a bit blurred._

_“Who is she? Where did you find her?” Chris asked._

_“Unhand me right now!” She yelled again, her indignation rolling off of her in waves._

_Tielden morphed into his human form, cricking his neck as he did so. “She was skulking around the potential site, we think she was tracking Runna.”_

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chris could see the fear flash in her eyes. “I wasn’t tracking anybody. I, I was…” she paused trying to assess the situation, then looked pleadingly at Chris. “Don’t tell him,” she nearly whispered. “Don’t tell him, he thinks I’m out on a mission and I… I…” she trailed off, hanging her head._

_“Don’t tell who?” Chris asked._

_Her head shot up and she looked Chris in the eyes as she said, “Lord Wyatt.”_

_Chris took a deep breath, glancing at the map again. “Take her to the Box, get her some food and water and see if she needs any first aid. I’ll be down in a minute to question her… Oh, and get PJ too, I’ll need her help.”_

_Chris kneaded his forehead with his knuckles, he could feel the tension headache coming on. He hadn’t slept in, what two days? Had it only been two days? He ran his hand over his jaw, feeling the stubble he hadn’t bothered shaving. He downed the rest of the cold bitter coffee from the mug he was holding and started making his way to the Box._

_His cousin was already in the room with the captive woman by the time he got there. The woman’s hands were bound to the table with enchanted leather straps, ‘one of my more genius ideas,’ Chris thought to himself. Although, he couldn’t have done the enchantment without Mel, she was always the stronger spell caster, almost as strong as Kat. He closed his eyes, he couldn’t think about his cousin right now. They would find her, he knew they would, it had only been two days after all._

_He sat down next to PJ and studied the woman across from him. Her defiance was back and she struggled at her bindings. He noticed an odd red birthmark on her arm and he couldn’t tell if it looked more like a bird or more like a flame. He looked over at PJ, “You get a read on her yet?” he asked._

_“She’s terrified. That's pretty much all she’s transmitting right now,” PJ responded, shrugging her shoulders._

_The woman looked at her warily, “who are you people?” suspicion and wonder evident in her voice._

_“How about you tell us who you are first,” Chris answered back. He’d spent months quietly recruiting people to his cause, stealthily building a resistance movement against his brother, The Resistance people called it now. He knew there were barely even whispers about the movement yet, Wyatt had no idea what Chris was up to. Chris had gotten pretty good at sizing people up though, quickly assessing how strong their loyalty to Lord Wyatt really was. The woman in front of him, he could tell, had very little loyalty to his brother at all, but that didn’t mean he could just reveal everything to her. Secrecy. He was good at secrecy._

_Before the woman could answer, an alarm started blazing. “SHIT!” Chris yelled as he and PJ jumped up. Devren ran into the room, a panicked expression on his face._

_“Scouts spotted three of them, just alerted us. Not sure who they are, or what powers they have,” the darklighter hastily said._

_Chris looked around, PJ nodded to him. He TK’d the woman's restraints from her arms and asked “Do you have any active powers?”_

_She looked at him befuddled, “Uh, just, just power stripping really. And tracking, and I can fight like hell… but…”_

_He smiled and apportated what appeared to be guns- at least they were loosely shaped like guns, but the barrel was larger and they were white and there appeared to be a set of crystals instead of a magazine. “How’s your aim?” He quirked, tossing one of the strange guns to her._

_“Energy blaster,” he said after she caught it. “When you pull the trigger, the crystals connect and it shoots out an energy ball.”  
The woman looked at him, amazed. He grinned, one of his rarely seen cocky grins. “Pretty cool, huh?”_

_“Are you really fighting him?” she asked, still amazed. When he nodded, she looked him straight in the eye, all her defiance back, but not directed at him. “Bianca, I’m Bianca.”_

Chris awoke with a jolt, tangled in his sheets and covered in sweat. The dreams were picking up in intensity again. He blamed all the extra stress. With the training sessions, frantic researching of magical relics plus his actual work, he felt like he was being pulled in a million different directions with everything seemingly equally as important. Maybe that’s all these dreams were, he thought, just his brain’s method of coping with everything. He lay in the bed a little longer, replaying the dream, then smiled, that was one damn cool weapon.


	6. Chapter VI

The dark haired demon rubbed a towel through his wet hair before wrapping it round himself and walking out to his penthouse balcony overlooking Central Park. Gods, he loved New York. The energy in the city was absolutely delicious and such an unending source of entertainment. It continually fascinated him how humans could get so wrapped up in such inconsequential nonsense and produce waves of anxiety over absolutely nothing. It was too bad really, one would think with such a short life span, not to mention such fragile bodies, they would be more appreciative of things. He had to admit however, for such shortsighted, self-important little pests, they could create exquisite works of beauty. He supposed that is what really preserved their species for all these millennia-- their infinite inventiveness. And perhaps their stubbornness. They had such a will to survive, despite their frequent attempts to destroy each other. He laughed, sometimes he wondered why demons even bothered to intervene at all in human affairs. Even without demonic influence wars come and go, humans destroy and rebuild, endure suffering themselves and cause the suffering of others. He could after all, like so many before him just choose to sit back and enjoy the show, but no, no he had bigger plans. With that thought Nomed took in a deep breath of the tainted city air and turned back into his apartment. He had an appointment to keep and it would not do to keep Trina waiting for long.

He shimmered into a dank alleyway and spotted Trina immediately, her frosty hair and pale skin were hard to miss; the Seer always looked as if she had just walked out of a commercial freezer Nomed thought to himself, shivering and involuntarily pulling his sport jacket more tightly around himself. He called to her, catching her icy stare.

“I was wondering if you would bother to show up,” she said in her clipped, crisp accent. She was old despite her youthful appearance, much older than Nomed and had walked many Otherworlds. Her voice carried a sense of her long life and vast experience, if you listened closely enough you could hear the dawn of a thousand winters in each syllable she uttered.

Nomed smiled, a smile he knew would warm her icy heart. “Tut-tut Trina, you know I’m not late,” he looked around the alley as he spoke, “Now then, shouldn’t we move on to business?”

Trina eyed him suspiciously, she always did have a soft spot for the handsome, young, ambitious ones, but surviving as many betrayals as she had through her long life had taught her caution. Yes, there was a time, long ago… she snapped back to the present. “Yes, I need to do some collecting first,” she said as she purposefully walked over to a figure sleeping beneath a nearby pile of cardboard. She studied the dirty, drunken man for a moment, then, moving faster than a typical human could even detect, she slit the man’s throat collecting the blood in a shining goblet. “Come,” she said to Nomed.

The demon obediently followed her through the back door of the closest building, up two flights of stairs and into an abandoned restroom that smelled strongly of rats. Trina walked over to the discolored mirror and began using the blood from the goblet to trace out peculiar runes on the reflective surface. She murmured words from a long-forgotten tongue and Nomed watched as images began to form in the mirror. Some he could make out, even recognize, but most seemed indecipherable, random images flashing around, disjointed, out of context tidbits of information. He shifted his gaze to Trina and watched as she studied the barrage of images. She was focused and alert, obviously she could decipher the steady onslaught of visual information. Finally the images began to slow and Trina smeared the runes across the face of the mirror, leaving bold streaks of blood.

“Well?” Nomed impatiently began. “Did you see them? Am I getting closer?”

Trina clicked her tongue at him, annoyed at his brash impatience. She eyed him warily, “Clean the mirror.”

Trying not to let his annoyance show Nomed did as she commanded. He could feel her watching him, her ancient eyes penetrating deep into him.

“The blade you failed to recover,” she finally began, “is in fact Tyrfing.” Nomed tried to speak but she ignored him, cutting him off. “It is the key to the lock and betrayal follows it, as you know. You already have recovered Lia Fáil and the Coire Ansic of The Dagda, yet while you believe the treasure you have once belonged to Lugh, it did not. And still, Claíomh Solais eludes you though it should be within your reach. Once the treasures are recovered there will still be the daunting tasks of opening that which was banished. No moment in the history of this world will be more opportune than the one on the horizon. The boundaries between this world and all the others will be weak and unprotected as time heals itself. Yet your own time grows short as the horizon is approaching.”

Nomed waited to ensure she was done speaking, barely concealing his rage. He was tired of these endless riddles. He hated Seers and their maddening ways.

“And this is all I am to expect from you today?” He finally questioned. “I might wonder at so little an effort to actually give real information. You know I didn’t start on this mad quest all on my own Trina, you helped push me down this road and now you don’t help me to get to the end of it! Damn you!” He could see that Trina was done, he would get nothing else from her today. He glared at her one last time, eyes flashing, then turned and stormed out of the abandoned building.

Trina watched him leave and sighed. She still had much work to do, and the centuries were starting to wear on her. She was tired, she felt stretched and thin like a veil draped over the corpse of a young bride. The Seer turned and reached for the goblet still filled with fresh blood. She stirred the blood with her finger while chanting something oddly melodic under her breath then went to the mirror again. This time she only used a few well-placed strokes, then focusing her intent, she placed her hand on the mirror before passing right through the reflective glass and landing on a Shadow Path. It was time, she had to find him, speak to him and the Shadow Paths were the only way to reach him anymore. She looked around the infinitely gray world: walks and stairways, roads and trails forking and snaking around each other. The paths were everywhere, they extended out in every direction even above and below, but she knew her path well and with one more heavy sigh she took a begrudging step.

  
)0( )0( )0(

 

Leo nearly dropped the stack of books he was carrying as his oldest son appeared suddenly, materializing through a swirl of tinkling blue lights. Last year Chris had devised a system of using mortals as a grounding energy source to digitize magical texts and so Leo and his nephew had been spending much of their free time working in The Magic School library to create a searchable index of the magical tomes housed in the vast collection. Since Bianca’s arrival however, their focus had shifted and the family were taking turns researching the collection, trying to discern what objects Nomed was after.

“Oi, sorry Dad,” Wyatt apologized, realizing he nearly orbed in right on top of his father. “Deuce! Go long!” He added, tossing a bag of chips and soda bottle to his cousin who was slouched over a laptop. The young man diverted his attention just in time to catch the flying snacks, knocking over a stack of books in the process.

Leo looked sharply at his grown son, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head. Wyatt did at least have the decency to look sheepishly back at his father and shrug his shoulders before going to help his cousin restack the books that had fallen. As Wyatt helped clean up the mess, Chris walked into the library, accompanied by Bianca, each with a fresh coffee, the sudden disarray barely registering as they headed for the large map of the Underworld they were working on.

Chris and Bianca had spent weeks laying out the map, arguing over some of the specifics and doing surreptitious reconnaissance to fill in their gaps in knowledge. Piper wasn’t too keen on Chris and Bianca’s numerous trips to the Underworld, but even she had to admit the mapping exercise was coming along nicely and could prove to be immensely beneficial.

“Ok,” Bianca started, looking down at the colored tokens littering the map, “so obviously those Grimlocks were working with Zohar’s team.” She moved a green token over to another area of the map.

“We don’t actually know that,” Chris argued.

“No, of course we don’t because _someone_ got trigger happy and vanquished them before I could get them to talk,” Bianca quipped.

“Bullshit,” Chris retorted, “I was saving your ass, woman. Or did you forget that part where you stopped breathing?”

“I had it under control, Halliwell,” Bianca said, gritting her teeth. “What part of Phoenix do you not understand?”

Leo had heard some version of this argument at least twenty times over the last few weeks, and was headed in their direction when he heard a loud gasp from the other side of the room.

“Holy shi—uh, guys?” Henry Jr. started. “I think I found something.” Deuce, as his older cousins affectionately dubbed him, was picking up one of the fallen books, studying the spread it had fallen open to. As he lifted it to the high study table, the others in the room crowed around to get a look.

There were labeled illustrations of a large rectangular stone with intricate carvings, an immense cauldron filled to abundance, a spear with a tip of fire and a sword that gleamed like the midday sun. Alongside these illustrations were depictions of what appeared to be great battles between tall, shining figures and grotesque monsters.

“It is unknown,” Deuce began reading aloud, “if the myths regarding the Tuatha Dé Danann (circa 4000 BCE) have any validity in the ongoing battle against the Chaos. As it is widely agreed by magical scholarship, the Elders seized power during the great battle of the Titans circa 2500 BCE. Many of the traditional stories from people groups around the globe date back thousands of years prior, some documented as early as 8000 BCE. While some believe the Elders do have accurate records of the time of Chaos in our world, they have never sought to share such records, if indeed they do exist. However, it should be noted, the great wizard Elgad (footnote 27a) warned extensively of the continued threat of the Chaos and taught his apprentices the ancient mythological stories of the defeat of the Chaos. Elgad was silenced in 350 AD and his apprentices scattered.” Deuce turned the page, looking for more information, “That’s it. That’s all it says.”

“What about the footnote reference to Elgad?” Leo asked.

Deuce squinted at the cramped text along the bottom of the page, “Uh, not in English, I can’t read it.”

“The drawings have captions though,” Wyatt leaned over his cousin’s shoulder. “Stone of Destiny, Cauldron of The Dagda, Spear of Lugh, Sword of Light…”

“That’s the stone,” Bianca interrupted, “it looked just like that.”

Leo looked at her, thinking. “You said you recovered it from Ireland?” He asked. Bianca nodded and he continued, “The Tuatha Dé Danann is an old Irish myth…” Leo paused, thinking again then looked worriedly at Wyatt. “The man, the man you met in Africa… how did you describe him?”

“Uh, spidery?” Wyatt responded, confused.

Leo jerked around, rushing to a shelf opposite the table they had gathered at, frantically searching for a book and mumbling to himself. As he ran his fingers over the spines he called out, “Boys, call Brody and get your mother.”

It took a few minutes for Leo to find the book he was searching for, and when he did Brody and Piper were already there, everyone anxiously waiting to see what dots Leo had connected. He opened up the volume, bringing it to the table and flipping through the pages until he found the one he was looking for. It was mostly covered in text with a small, black ink illustration of several iterations of a man and a spider.

“Anansi,” Leo said, pointing to the page. “He’s an African god, originating from the Ghana traditions I believe,” he finished, as if that explained everything and was surprised when he looked up and met a crowd of confused expressions.

“Wait,” Piper laughed, “like Anansi the spider? From the children’s stories? You’re getting worked up over a bedtime story?”

“No, Piper,” Leo began earnestly, “Anansi isn’t just a bedtime story. Don’t you see? Wyatt encountering an ancient god, Nomed searching for ancient relics of the gods… its too great a coincidence.”

“But… gods?” She questioned, trying not to glance at Chris. Her last experience with gods was not pleasant, and involved her son from the future convincing Leo to turn her and her sisters into said gods.

Leo understood her unspoken reference. “Not like that, no. The Greek gods were humans endowed with the powers of the gods. The gods themselves… they left our world so long ago, and the Elders spent centuries closing up any remaining portals. There are a few who remained here, or who have been able to concentrate their essence into humans for short periods of time,” Leo smiled at Piper, remembering their time channeling two of the great Hindu deities.

“But what is Nomed doing messing with gods?” Bianca asked.

Chris looked again at the images of the relics, “Dad, you said they left our world? What do you mean?”

“Just that, they left. At least that’s my assumption, even as an Elder I never knew how much of the ancient lore was true. It wouldn’t be a huge leap, knowing the amount of effort that went into sealing off our world from other planes of existence, to assume they moved on to other dimensions.” Leo answered.

“Other dimensions…” Chris trailed off, thinking. “It’s a portal. He’s making a portal. Or opening the portals, I don’t know.”

Piper looked alarmed, “How do you figure, Chris?”

Chris pointed to the relics, “Earth, Water, Fire, Air. He’ll need a key too… Metal. If these are relics of the gods then I’m sure they pack a pretty hefty magical punch.” Chris looked at his father, “But if the Elders did seal off our world, then even with the relics and the key it would take some serious fire power to rip through barriers between worlds… unless… unless he knew of a weak point.”

Leo looked meaningfully at Piper. They both realized the hidden importance of what Chris had just said. There was a weak point, an alternate timeline in another reality that was about to catch up to their own, and they had no idea what would happen when time caught up to itself. They both looked at Chris, if this was true, there were only a few weeks before the barriers between the two realities would start to thin out so that time could heal the rift the Original Chris had created.


	7. Chapter VII

“Dear freaking lord, Chris!” Wyatt thundered. “I have been searching for you everywh…” but he was cut short when Chris grabbed his arm, pulling him to the ground just in time to miss a fire ball being thrown directly at him. Wyatt looked quickly around as he army crawled for cover in some unknown region of the Underworld, his eyes widening when he realized his sister had accompanied his suicidal brother on this particular excursion. Wyatt thought he might completely big-brother out on his younger, and completely reckless siblings but Chris caught his expression and smiled, nodding his head in Melinda’s direction, clearly indicating that Wyatt should shut up and watch. Wyatt kept his gaze on his sister, and watched in confused horror as Melinda pulled out what appeared to be a large white gun of some sort. She stepped out from their cover and proceeded to rapid fire the strange weapon until the last of the low-level demons in the cave were gone and she let loose an exhilarated cry of success.

Chris, excitement clearly evident in his face, moved to join her and a still-stupefied Wyatt followed behind. Melinda was laughing as she examined the weapon, “This thing is amazing!” she exclaimed, “absolutely amazing!”

“What the hell is that thing?” Wyatt demanded.

Chris looked nervously at his brother. This was exactly the sort of thing that Mr. Responsible would never do, exactly the sort of thing that would land Chris yet another stop-being-so-reckless-and-be-careful lecture from his dad, and quite possibly even attempts from his mom at blowing him up.

“It’s an energy blaster Wy!” Melinda breathlessly explained. “Can you believe this? Chris came up with it and we found that old 3D printer and made the shell… it took some creative enchantments to make it strong enough, but- wow- why did no one ever think of this before?”

“Wait a second,” Wyatt started. “You two created a gun that shoots energy balls?” He was completely dumbfounded, and albeit, a little in awe of his younger brother’s genius. “You are so dead when mom finds out,” he laughed. “But after she kills you, we need to get these babies into production.”

Chris looked worried, “There’s still a lot of testing to do with it Wy. I mean I don’t know how long the charge on the crystals last or if it can overheat…” Chris trailed off, realizing how lame he sounded, and that he was giving his brother proof that he had indeed brought their little sister to the Underworld to use an untested weapon. Wyatt just raised his eyebrows at Chris. “Save the lecture, Wy.”

Even after orbing into the Manor attic, the siblings were still going at it and didn’t notice their parents and Aunt Paige walk in. It didn’t take long for Piper to piece together the conversation and spot the much discussed weapon Wyatt had claimed.

“Hold up!” Piper yelled, all three of her grown children stopping abruptly and unconsciously standing straighter. Chris cringed when he realized he’d just been caught. He wasn’t ready to explain the dreams he’d been having over the last few months. Reluctantly he had told Wyatt a little about them, but only because his brother had woken him up during a particularly bad one when he’d heard Chris thrashing about and yelling in his sleep. He’d tried to play them off to Wyatt as best he could and was careful not to reveal any of the disturbing details of the dreams, but Wyatt wasn’t stupid; he knew something deeper was going on with Chris.

“Give it here.” Piper said, putting her hand out as Wyatt handed the gun over to her. She examined it closely, with Paige and Leo looking over her shoulder. It was actually quite cleverly put together with a set of enchanted crystals that had been pre-charged held tightly in place where there should have been a magazine. She could see the mechanism by which the trigger moved the crystals into place, closing the loop and creating the surge of energy. She looked back up at her boys, as Paige greedily got her hands on the weapon.

“That’s a pretty incredible little invention you kids have there,” Piper said. Paige was letting out audible sounds of awe as she conducted her own examination behind Piper. “Anyone care to tell me just how you got your hands on it?”

Chris visibly deflated, setting his jaw and tilting his head to the side in annoyance, a gesture Piper hadn’t seen in over two decades. She nearly gasped and she felt Leo tense next to her. She had tried to keep preoccupied the last few months with the hunt for magical relics, studying up on every god-myth imaginable, and training the next generation of Halliwells, but always there was that certain date on the calendar, looming in front of her. She could hear the seconds tick, tick, ticking away, getting closer and closer. There was nothing, absolutely nothing like this in recorded magical history. There were no books, no Elders, no Angels of Destiny with any answers- only theories and educated guesses. All she, Leo and her sisters could do was prepare for any and every eventuality. As Chris’s birthday drew nearer though, and they uncovered more of Nomed’s plans, it became painfully obvious just how big of a deal it really was.

She and Leo had spent countless hours arguing with the Elders, talking through a thousand scenarios and what-ifs, yet the fact remained that no one really knew. They did know that someway, somehow the rift in the timelines would heal itself. They guessed this natural healing process would weaken the boundaries of their world, and in some unknown way Nomed was planning to take advantage of the weakened protective walls. Piper wanted to throw all her energy into trying to stop time, trying to just completely erase the original timeline, but even she knew that was impossible. Instead, they focused on what they could stop: Nomed.

After the discovery several weeks ago at Magic School, the Halliwell clan began scouring the globe for any hint of the location of the remaining magical relics Nomed was hunting. They’d also spent countless hours theorizing just how Nomed would use the magical relics to open a portal and just who might be coming through said portal. After the fifth accident in a row resulting in blood loss while examining Jude’s athame, it was Brody who finally observed the relic must in fact be cursed. And, after some digging, they believed the athame was actually an ancient dagger, forged by a long-forgotten race of dwarves. The dagger craved blood and whenever it was unsheathed it would not rest until it had drunk of fresh blood. Disturbingly, this led to more unsettling theories about just how the portal would be opened.

Bianca had only heard rumors of the cauldron and the spear, but could not verify if Nomed had actually gotten his hands on either, but instead of chasing after relics that could have very well already been found, the Halliwells chose to focus their main efforts on locating The Sword of Light. Wyatt and Chris had been through seventeen caves, fourteen underground grottoes and eleven mountaintop hideaways only to discover that none of those enchanted swords were the one they were searching for. Melinda had dubbed the last two weeks the Swordpocalypse, and the Manor basement now housed forty-two magical swords.

Piper was tired and frustrated. The weeks of detective work were wearing on her and she simply felt helpless to do much of anything. Those feelings didn’t stop her, but they did make her a bit short-tempered. Chris thought everyone must have been working too hard, he’d noticed even in just the last week how nervous and fatigued both his parents seemed to be. He thought the lack of sleep was making him a bit paranoid too because he had the distinct impression his parents were hiding something from him. Just the day before he walked into their kitchen when they were in the midst of an anxious conversation, only for them to notice he was there and stop abruptly and awkwardly. Then add in the almost complete silence about his upcoming birthday, it was enough to make anyone paranoid. Usually his mom made a huge deal about birthdays, throwing over-the-top parties when he and Wy and Mel were young and now concocting huge extended-family dinners. He’d actually started to wonder if his mom had in fact lost her mind and was planning a surprise party in the midst of the current save-the-world-drama but quickly dismissed that idea as ridiculous.

“I’m waiting…” Piper said, tapping her foot on the attic floor and bringing everyone’s focus back to the weapon. Mel looked nervously at her brother before taking a deep breath.

“We made it, Mom,” Melinda started. Chris’s head snapped around, glaring at his sister while Piper’s eyebrows nearly shot up completely off her face. “Chris and I made it. He had the idea for it and…” Melinda was cut short though, as her brother decided to orb out of the room completely, much to his mother’s chagrin.

 

)0( )0( )0(

 

  
_“Tell me where she is,” Wyatt stared down at his younger brother. Chris simply shot him a malevolent glare and looked away._

_“Okay Chris. Of course you’re going to play it this way. Look, I know you have Kat and you’ve hidden her very well little brother.” Wyatt paused, hoping he was getting a rise out of Chris. “If you aren’t going to be reasonable, well you and I both know how that ends.”_

_Chris swallowed hard as Wyatt turned his back to him. His wrists and legs were bound by energy lines that circled round them, stretching his arms upward toward the ceiling and keeping his feet firmly planted. The energy from the bindings was powerful enough to interfere with his magic too, he knew from experience, there was very little he could do but accept whatever pain Wyatt had in store for him and just wait it out._

_Slowly Wyatt approached him pushing a small metal cart with a crisp linen cloth draped over the top. Once he was directly in front of Chris, the older brother smiled a cocky, half-grin, and pulled off the fabric revealing an assortment of shiny chrome tools. In any other time, in any other place, someone would have mistook the spread for a surgeon’s toolkit, but not here. Chris knew exactly what they were, knew exactly how they felt cutting into his skin._

_Wyatt gently picked up one of the objects, looking it over, feeling the metal in his hands with a sort of reverence. After considering the sharp edge for a few more moments, he turned quickly towards Chris, pressing the sharp edge against the soft of Chris’s neck, and began whispering in his ear as he slowly pushed the tool into his brother’s body._

_“We’ve danced this dance so many times Chris. You defy me. I catch you. I try and try to help you learn, I try to keep you safe, to keep everyone safe. But you don’t listen.” As he spoke, he twisted the metal until he could feel his brother’s body shudder involuntarily at the pain. Then he found another tender spot and let the sharp edge slip through Chris’s skin again and again and again. Whispering again, he said, “I grow tired of this Chris. And since my lectures don’t seem to be getting through to you… perhaps we’ll try a different approach this time.” Chris’s breath quickened and he could see the enjoyment flash across Wyatt’s face._

_“So, little brother,” Wyatt began again, smiling and letting his fingers slide over the top of the metal instruments on the tray. Chris could hear shuffling beyond, but it was too dark to make out what was happening. “There are rumors you know. I’ve been hearing things from little birds… they’re chirping in my ear, saying Chrissy-boy’s playing like he’s in love…”_

_Chris froze in terror as Wyatt continued. “Oh yes, Chris. She’s lovely, put up a hell of a fight actually.” Chris could hear more shuffling and then two darklighters pushed forward a bound figure with head covered. Wyatt grabbed the figure, touching her body just to upset Chris more, then took one of the more sinister looking pieces from the tray and roughly pulled the head covering off. He pulled Bianca’s hair down, forcing her head back and gently traced her face with his fingertips, before glancing back at Chris. “Now brother, let’s see how well you can pay attention.”_

Chris awoke with Bianca’s screams still echoing in his mind. It took him a few seconds to shake the images from his mind and force himself into reality. He looked around his room, letting out a long sigh, it was nearly 7 am. Too late to go back to sleep but much earlier than he’d hoped. He wasn’t expecting this particular birthday to be great, but he might as well get up and face it. 


	8. Chapter IIX

AN: Well, geez, life has a way of occupying one's time doesn't it? I had this chapter half-written before I took a break for my last exam (which I passed by the way- legit licensed architect here) and have opened it up to finish it about 20 times over the last few months! I wanted it to be longer, but I figured I might as well go ahead and post... you guys are enjoying the suspense, right? ;)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I love hearing your thoughts!

Happy Reading!

)0( )0( )0(

"Piper," Paige started, crossing her arms across her chest, "doncha' think you're being a little neurotic?"

The older sister, looked up from the potion she was working on just long enough to glare at Paige, then focused back on her task.

"Seriously, woman, we don't need more antidote! I mean, c'mon, we've got enough antidote to save at least twenty-seven versions of Chris." Paige cocked her head, "Wait, you don't think he went back in time multiple times do you? Ohhhhh, I've already got a headache coming on."

Piper continued to ignore her as Phoebe bounded into the kitchen, talking quickly and nervously, Leo following close behind. "…you know? I mean if we do, you know, all get those other memories, will I remember dying Leo? And what if I never met Coop? What about the people who are dead in the other timeline but alive in this timeline? Or if they were born in that timeline or not this one? Or born in this one but not that one? And what about…"

"Enough Pheebs! Everyone in this family really is neurotic!" Paige interrupted. "Piper, did you at least think to stock up on the aspirin?"

"And coffee, I'll make more coffee." Phoebe changed focus. "I don't think I slept at all last night."

"Oh god, you don't need more caffeine, please no more caffeine," Paige moaned.

They were all nervous, and all dealing with their anxiety in their own way. Piper and Leo had decided to keep Chris's birthday low key since they really didn't know what to expect and didn't want the added burden of the entire extended family around. As much as they loved their nieces and nephew, they would be additional people to worry about and protect if things got nasty. The current working theory they had developed with the Elders was that Chris had started merging with his Original self, they'd noticed mannerisms natural to the Original Chris but not their Chris show up, he'd started referencing things only the Original Chris knew about and had begun using his powers in ways they could only surmise were survival adaptations from the original future. Thus far though, Chris was the only one who had been behaving out of character. With all the unknowns about the situation and the pressing quest to stop Nomed, the sisters and Leo thought it best to keep the focus on the known crisis and deal with any time travel repercussions as they occurred. Which was exactly how Piper found herself standing in her kitchen, obsessively making fresh batches of the antidote she hoped she wouldn't need and desperately wishing there was something more she could do to keep her middle child safe.

)0( )0( )0(

Trina stepped out of the mirror, clutching a small, ornately decorated box. This was her third trip to see Jötunn in as many weeks, she shuddered, shaking off the vestiges of shadow that longed to pull her back through the mirror. It was the smell, she had realized, that bothered her the most. The land of the Great Exile stank of dying gods. It was a cloying, rancid smell, like nectar poured over a rotting corpse and the stench lingered for hours after her return. Everything seemed to be working according to Jötunn's plans, but as patient as the old Norse was she was even more patient. Trina had plans of her own. She looked down at the small box she carried, turning it over in her hands. It was difficult magic, she was relived she had been able to succeed thus far, but there was more to be done to secure the safe passage for her ally. Gods she hoped the woman would help. Once she was awakened, Trina would have to stay out of sight. The Morrigan had always blamed Trina for Gaim's exile, but Trina had been so young all those millennia ago, she had simply trusted the wrong god.

She paused in her thoughts, she could feel the invisible walls around her thinning. The worlds were changing, all of them. It was time to find Nomed and hand him the last bit of information he needed to complete the ritual. Securing the small box within her flowing gown, Trina headed out of the hotel room she was in, gracefully stepping over the body she had left on the floor.

It did not take her long to find Nomed, cloistered away in his penthouse poring over ancient manuscripts and maps with only two trusted companions standing guard. She announced her presence, the demon nodding his assent then studying her warily. Despite knowing his instinctive mistrust of her was well earned, it irritated her to see it in his eyes. She looked around at the maps he was studying as she waited for him to speak. He had been charting out the locations of old Nexuses thought long-banished. Trina could laugh at the Elders' pompous stupidity, believing they could close down the ancient links between the worlds. She would never understand this group of beings, gods in their own right who eschewed their own innate deity. They were such an odd combination of hypocrisy, self-sanctimony and cowardice it was a wonder they had ever come to power in the first place. To be sure, evolution had pulled a clever one when she saw fit to allow humans to be reborn as gods with their mortal memories still intact. She blamed Anansi first, then Prometheus and then let's not forget that arrogant Hebrew god and his son: all of them so fascinated by these damn humans. But what kind of hypocrite did that make her? She wouldn't have the free access between the worlds were it not for the bit of humanity in her blood. Then of course, the creatures who called themselves demons in this place, if they had any notion of the long line of human ancestors they were descended from… her thoughts were cut short as Nomed slammed his fist on the table.

"Well, Trina," he began slowly, "I hope that you have some news for me. Some news that would at least be mildly helpful anyhow."

She smiled, her cold, hard smile. "Yes, Nomed, I do actually. I tracked a lead on the sword," she said then chuckled softly, her eyes dancing with malice. "The Sword of Light… Claíomh Solais… You knew the last reputable sighting was in Welshlands, I started there this time. Where I was able to trace it to Avalon," she paused, tossing out a triple crescent ring, the owner's finger still within the silver circlet. Nomed picked up the macabre trinket, his eyes snapping to the Seer.

"Nimue?" He asked, hesitantly, his voice clouded with awed suspicion.

Trina laughed again. "Yes, the old nymph has been wasting quite away over the years, but she was at least helpful… after I convinced her it was in her own self interest."

"It can't be, all this time, Claíomh Solais has been right under our noses?" He would have laughed, except for the further complications this could cause.

"Yes, Nimue confirmed it, she was the one who took the sword from Ireland and the one who gave it to Arthur himself. Claíomh Solais is Excalibur." She studied Nomed's face carefully, he had little notion of the true purpose of Nexuses, the bindings between the worlds, she knew he thought having two of the needed relics in Halliwell possession meant total defeat.

"How has the mapping been coming?" She asked, changing subjects.

Nomed shook the concern out of his mind, Trina was always more than a few steps ahead of him, he needed to focus, needed to keep up with her. "I believe I have all five located now," he casually gestured with his hand at the maps. Trina looked at his notes with interest, it appeared he had located all five. She grabbed a pen and book, leaning over the map she drew a line connecting each of the five Nexus locations, forming a pentagram that spread across the earth. Then she circled the very center of pentagram.

"There," she said, her eyes wild with delight. "That's the hidden Nexus. The first one they closed off."

Nomed looked closer at the map, following the lines connecting San Francisco, Istanbul, Los Innocentes, Greenland and the Cape of Good Hope. "That's the damn middle of the Atlantic, Trina."

"Of course it is. The sea is where they sent the gods to die," she said, without emotion.

Nomed steepled his fingers, tapping his nose. "Alright then. We have them all laid out. They've all been banished, even the Halliwell Nexus."

Trina's eyes sparkled, she spoke slowly, softly, her hand running gently across the map, "And since when have you known any spell to be permanent, Nomed? Banished, not destroyed. You can summon them back, open the portals."

"What?" Nomed looked at her sharply, suspicion thick in his gaze. "And how, pray tell, do I do that?"

Trina laughed, pulling out the small box she had hidden in her robes and shaking it just a bit, "You use a key."

)0( )0( )0(

Devren ducked behind a boulder as the manufactured energy ball came flying in his direction. These damn Halliwells, he thought, rolling his eyes and apportating his cross bow into his hands in a flurry of dark lights. The darklighter took a few seconds to sense the locations of the dark-haired witchlighter and the Phoenix who was with him, then flung himself out of his hiding spot, shooting his crossbow with frightening accuracy.

Chris sensed the shot coming just as Bianca yelled his name and orbed in place, narrowly avoiding the arrow. He saw the darklighter's eyes widen as flicked his wrist, sending him flying across the cave. Mid-flight, Devren dark-orbed himself behind Bianca, grabbing her around the waist and pinning her arms down.

He looked Chris in the eye, "Seriously, what do you want Halliwell?"

Chris almost laughed, it wasn't often he met with demons and darklighters who weren't terrified of him, then he noticed something… he recognized this darklighter.

"Devren?" Chris blurted out.

The darklighter, astonished loosened his grip on Bianca, she took advantage of the distraction, breaking free of his arms and using her momentum to spin behind him and catch him much the same way he had her moments before, except she had a blade at his throat.

"You know this creep, Chris?" She asked.

The darklighter tried not to swallow, breathing shallowly, he looked at Chris, thoroughly perplexed. Chris worried his lip, this was Devren, the same darklighter that had been in his dreams. Devren, one of his most trusted men, the closest thing he had to a friend… He shook the dreams out of his head. No, this was not a dream. This was real life and the darklighter before him was not a trusted friend, he was a darklighter, an enemy who had just tried to kill him.

"No," Chris shook his head, "no."

Bianca looked sharply at Chris and just as she was deciding to finish the darklighter off, Chris anticipated her shouting for her to stop. She looked at him bewildered, letting her guard down just long enough for Devren to get away from her. The darklighter, still confused by Chris's recognition, faced Chris and Bianca, pointing his crossbow at each of them in turn. Chris raised the energy gun, aiming it at Devren.

"We need to question him," Chris said to Bianca, never taking his eyes off Devren.

"Question him? Are you out of your god-damned mind Halliwell?" Bianca exclaimed.

"No! He's got information, I know it," Chris said.

"Like hell I do," Devren yelled. "And even if I did, you really think I'd share it with a Halliwell?" Then he shot another arrow, without taking any sort of aim and used the momentary distraction to dark-orb out of the cave.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it Halliwell! What the hell is wrong with you?" Bianca griped kicking at the dirt and marching herself out of the cave.

Chris ran his hand slowly over his face, what the hell was wrong with him? He sighed, there wasn't much time to waste trying to figure it out, he had a birthday dinner to get to after all.


	9. Chapter IX

_He was just sitting there, staring at the floor. The air around him felt like molasses, voices sounded like a confused din of ocean waves. How long had he been staring at the floor? He didn't even startle when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. He could barely make out his grandfather's voice, "Come on, Chris, it's time." He didn't think he could even stand, the weight of loss felt like lead in his body. He could feel his grandfather nudging him up, but he didn't want to move, he couldn't move. Victor gently helped him stand, he tried to avert his eyes, tried not to see the front of the cold chapel, tried not to see his father's red-rimmed eyes, his brother's hollow stare or his sister's tear-streaked face._

Chris shook his head, leaning against the shower tiles, trying to sort through the strange thoughts and feelings swirling through him. He couldn't remember ever being in that white chapel, this seemed like a memory, but it wasn't his, was it? He closed his eyes, regulating his breath as the hot water streamed over his face. _Mom_ , he thought suddenly. _No_. That couldn't have been a premonition, not only was that not his power, but Wyatt couldn't have been more than sixteen. _Maybe I am losing it_ , he thought wryly.

He took a couple more Excedrin when he got out of the shower, his head had been killing him all day and he thought he must have pulled a muscle during that stand-off with Devren, he couldn't shake the aching pain in his abdomen. Devren… the confrontation with the darklighter had him worried. The last few months he'd been able to come up with various plausible explanations for the strange dreams: working too much, family stresses, anxiety over the relics… but he couldn't come up with an explanation for how an actual darklighter came to feature so prominently in so many of the dreams.

Bianca was right, she had given him an earful after the disaster in the Underworld. Something was off, Bianca sensed it, Wyatt sensed it, they all sensed it. Bianca said it felt as if the air was thinning, Wyatt said everything felt electrified the way the world does just before a storm. Chris couldn't quite put language to it though, it felt like the moment just after the first ball in a Newton's cradle is released, when the energy is moving through the stationary balls, everything is still but you know the last ball is about to arc upward. _For every action_ …He laughed out loud at himself realizing he was starting to recite physics laws in his head, then stopped, _If the last ball is about to move, what started the first ball's movement_? he thought.

)0( )0( )0(

"Piper, it's fine," Leo said calmly, resting his hands on his wife's shoulders as she nervously rearranged the dinner table again. Piper stopped and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and turning into Leo's embrace. "We're as prepared for whatever may happen as we can be," he continued as he held her close.

Just then Wyatt and Bianca came through the front door, laughing and holding empty coffee cups.

"Where's your brother?" Piper demanded, still on edge despite Leo's calming presence.

"We left him at the apartment to grab some coffee on our way over," Wyatt responded, sharing a look with his dad. Leo simply shook his head, keeping his arm around Piper. "I'm sure he'll be here any minute."

"Oh, hey, Bianca!" Melinda started, coming down the stairs. "Can I borrow that blue skirt of yours? I've finally got a second date with Matt tomorrow…" She trailed off, looking around the room, "Uh, where's Mr. Punctual?"

As if on cue, a swirl of white lights appeared in the dining room, "Sorry, sorry, I know I'm late," Chris said, looking exhausted.

It had taken more energy than it should have for him to get himself out of his apartment after the encounter with Devren and the flood of more strange images through his mind. The Excedrin wasn't particularly helping his headache either and the pain in his abdomen seemed to be getting worse by the minute. Piper frowned, noticing the dark circles under his eyes. She looked at her son with concern and realized suddenly just how much he looked like his old self- the Chris she met over twenty years ago. Cursing at herself for never noticing just how much the burden he had carried back then had worn on him, never fully realizing just how battle-hardened he had been, _what kind of mother…_ she thought as she stormed across the room and pulled her son into a tight embrace.

Chris stiffened a bit, startled by his mother's response, then winced as her intense hug put pressure on his sore muscles. Piper pulled away, alarmed, her sharp eyes examining him. "You're hurt," she said with an edge to her voice.

Chris looked at her, rubbing the soft spot just below his ribs where the aching was the worst. "Just a pulled muscle is all," he sighed. "Nothing to worry about, Mom, really."

Piper looked back at Leo, her hands still gripping Chris's arms, barely able to contain her panic. Leo frowned, taking a deep breath, "Piper, he'll be fine, fine. Let's get some food in these kids and quit worrying."

Wyatt shared a concerned look with Melinda, they both noted the flicker of worry on their dad's face. What were their parents keeping from them this time? Wyatt had to take a few seconds to try and quell his annoyance, were their parents ever going to trust them all to handle things? Dear god, he was nearly the same age as his mom was when she started battling demons on her own and without any training. Melinda could tell from the set of Wyatt's jaw where his thoughts were leading, this was not the time for an argument, couldn't everyone just stop being neurotic long enough to have a pleasant birthday dinner for Chris? She gently put her hand on Wyatt's back, tapping into some of her whitelighter calming to help soothe his annoyance. He knew what she was doing and let her, letting out a long breath as they followed everyone into the dining room. Thankfully, their dad was already pouring out some healthy glasses of wine for everyone.

The wine fortunately seemed to be helping Chris's headache and he could feel some of his worry lifting as he sat with his family, eating his favorite meal, joking around and sharing old stories.

"…and then Aunt Paige found you and Tam trying to hide the potion in the school's janitor closet," Wyatt laughed, along with the rest of the table, as he finished up the story. Chris laughed with everyone else, but then looked confused.

"Wait, no… that was the time you tried to convince Tam to test that stupid potion on Bobby Tomlinson, remember?" Chris said, thoughtful.

"What?!" Wyatt exclaimed. "No way! Why the hell would I have tried to get Tam to throw a wart potion on Bobby? That poor kid had enough issues- remember? He'd always blow up potions and end up covered in shi—stuff in class all the time!"

Chris shook his head, still looking confused. He started to stand up to carry his dessert plate into the kitchen, but as he did, everything swum in and out of focus. He steadied himself, then laughed nervously, saying, "I guess I had more wine than I thought," while absently rubbing the sore spot just below his chest.

Wyatt laughed loudly, "Oh no you don't little brother, we still got a full night of drinking ahead of us!"

Chris groaned, honestly he really didn't feel like enduring an entire evening of bar hopping with their friends, but he knew he couldn't get out of it without stirring up more anxiety with his parents.

Bianca playfully punched Wyatt, "Give him a break Wy. It's been a stressful few weeks, you know."

"Exactly!" Wyatt said, smiling. "That's exactly why we are going out and getting hammered to celebrate my little brother turning the big two-three."

Bianca rolled her eyes as Piper walked back in the room, clearing dishes. "Getting hammered, huh boys?" She asked, trying to laugh. She eyed Chris warily, "Hun, you sure you're up for letting Wyatt drag you all over town tonight?"

She wanted to step in and forbid him from leaving her sight, but he wasn't a child anymore, as Leo had just finished reminding her in the kitchen. He was right, of course, damned whitelighter-turned-elder-turned-avatar-turned-mortal. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was just after nine. _Three hours_ , she thought, _three hours and then this day will be over, maybe, just maybe we'll pull through this after all_. Looking back at Chris, she held in a sigh, she had to let him go, had to trust that it would be alright. She knew exactly how strong the young man before her was, knew he could face whatever the last few hours of this particular birthday would throw at them.

)0( )0( )0(

Trina breathed deeply, standing on Nomed's balcony in the cool evening air. It was happening, she closed her eyes, letting the wind toss her hair wildly as she stretched out her arms reveling in her knowledge of the coming chaos. Nomed slipped outside, casually carrying a tumbler of scotch.

"Can you feel it Nomed?" Trina asked, her voice more sensual than he'd ever heard. He could, he could feel it, could feel the air thick and crisp with power. It was starting.

)0( )0( )0(

"Well…?" Piper turned from washing dishes as Paige orbed into the kitchen with Phoebe in-tow. "Well woman?" Paige asked again after she fully materialized.

Piper dried her hands on a towel, sighing and leaning against the counter. "Well…" she started, drawing the word out. "Well, nothing yet."

"Nothing?" Phoebe asked, sitting down on one of the stools at the island. "So, maybe nothing will happen? Maybe we all just got worked up over nothing?"

Piper snorted in disbelief, "Yeah right."

"Yeah," Phoebe admitted, her hand unconsciously massaging her neck, remembering the consequences of her past life, the day those consequences caught up to her.

"Almost that time though…" Paige said, worrying her lip, looking at the clock.

Piper began prepping to make tea, the three sisters sitting in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Do you guys feel it?" Phoebe asked, breaking the silence. Her sisters both looked at her sharply, still lost in thought. "Everything feels thin, electric…" she trailed off, looking out at the black sky.

)0( )0( )0(

"Alright, alright, next round on me," Jude said as he passed out beers. Chris grabbed one, glancing over just as Wyatt cracked a private joke with Bianca. A sudden pang of jealously flowed through Chris, making him confused. He shook his head and drank down some of his beer, but just as he quelled the odd feelings an intense, burning pain ripped through him. He dropped his beer and doubled over in pain, all of his friends eyes worriedly looking at him.

"Chris, Chris, what's wrong?" Wyatt anxiously demanded.

Taking a steadying breath, Chris gritted his teeth, "It's ok, it's ok Wy." He tried straightening back up, a grimace of pain on his face. "It's just… fuck," he gasped, lifting his hands that were smeared in the blood pouring from a fresh wound. He looked at his hands then up at Wyatt, as another wave of burning pain shot through him.

"Holy shit," Wyatt exclaimed, jumping over the table to get to Chris's side as their friends closed ranks around them to prevent any prying eyes from seeing what was happening. Wyatt held his hands out over what appeared to be a stab wound, "I got you Chris, I got you."

"What's taking so long Wy?" Bianca asked, glancing around the bar patio, her tracking senses on high alert.

"I, I don't know…" Wyatt looked up at everyone. "It's not, I can't… I don't know. We need to get him back to the Manor, now."

"Ok," Jude nodded, "let's get you guys to the alley."

Bianca stepped around, taking off her jacket and giving it to Chris to shield the blood from view. "C'mon, Chris, just pretend you're drunk." She and Wyatt helped Chris stand up and slowly made their way off the patio. Wyatt looked back, worried.

"Go!" Carrie said, "Go- we've got damage control handled here." Wyatt nodded, letting Bianca guide him and his brother around a fence where he could orb them all to the Manor.

)0( )0( )0(

Piper and her sisters heard a loud crash from the living room and came running in to see Wyatt and Bianca crash to the floor, carrying a badly hurt Chris.

"Brody!" Wyatt yelled. "Brody get your whitelighter ass down here!"

Brody materialized in less than a second, while Piper was still trying to assess what was happening.

"Heal him, now!" Wyatt yelled.

"It won't work," Piper said, Brody looked up at her, trying to heal Chris. Wyatt snapped his head around, looking at his mother in disbelief. "Paige, get the potions," she said without taking her eyes off her sons. "Wyatt, Brody, get him upstairs." They orbed up to the guest room, laying Chris out on the bed, his eyes fluttering as he moaned.

"Stop him, Dad… save us both," Chris mumbled.

Leo and Melinda came jogging down the hallway, just as Piper and her sisters orbed into the room, several potion bottles in-hand. Bianca hung back in the doorway, feeling like an intruder in a family crisis.

Piper headed to the bed and began coaxing Chris to drink the potion she had in her hand, while everyone anxiously watched.

"I don't understand," Wyatt said quietly.

Leo put his arm around his oldest son, "We think it's a poison created by Elder magic."

Wyatt just took a slow breath, trying to process what his dad just said. He crossed his arms and watched as Chris tried to swallow the liquid his mother was giving him.

Piper hung her head, "It's not working," she said tersely.

"It's got to work," Paige mumbled.

"Maybe, maybe we need to get it directly into his bloodstream," Phoebe offered, looking eagerly around, but Piper just shook her head, watching as Chris convulsed in pain.

Bianca jumped into action, apportating a syringe from the room she'd been using at the Manor. "Here," she said, pushing her way into the room and to Chris's side. Paige handed her one of the potion bottles she was holding and the entire room watched in anxious silence as the Phoenix expertly filled the syringe and pressed the needle into Chris's arm. Piper let out a breath she didn't even realize she was holding as she saw the color start to come back to Chris's face and he took a shaky breath.

"Kyle, Wyatt, try it now, both of you," she ordered.

Wyatt and Brody jumped, both putting out their hands over Chris's wound and letting the healing flow through them for what seemed like an eternity. Brody started to strain, and Paige added her own power to the group. Finally, with the combined healing power of the two witchlighters and whitelighter, the wound began to heal. Once completely healed, Paige, Wyatt and Brody fell back, exhausted by the effort and amount of power it had taken. Chris lay deathly still and then suddenly gasped for air, sitting up and looking wildly around the room, his vision swimming in and out of focus until he saw his mother, sitting next to him on the bed with tears in her eyes.

"You did it Chris," she smiled at the version of her son she hadn't seen in twenty-three years. "You did it sweetie, you changed everything."


	10. Chapter X

"You did it sweetie, you changed everything," Chris heard Piper say, but nothing was making sense. He felt sluggish and tired, but he didn't have time for this, Gideon had Wyatt, he had to do something. His brain started to catch up to his senses though and he realized he was in an oddly familiar room surrounded by people, too many people. Alert again, he sat up quickly looking wildly around the room, nearly losing his emotional mask completely when he saw Bianca sitting at a desk chair, removed from the crowd around him. _Bianca's alive?_ Unbidden, he remembered saying good bye to her, the fragmented wood that tore through her body covered in blood, his own hands covered in her blood. Reflexively he reached to his pocket to find her ring, but it wasn't there. Now he was really starting to panic.

Phoebe recognized his fear immediately, "Chris," she started gently, his eyes snapped to her. "Chris, what's the last thing you remember?"

Something wasn't right, everyone looked different somehow. He shook his head, taking a breath and swinging his legs over the side of the bed so he could sit properly. What was the last thing he remembered? He let his manic thoughts coalesce. "Gideon, Wyatt!" He exclaimed trying to stand up, looking pleadingly at Piper and Leo. Piper shushed him, keeping a gentle pressure on his shoulders to bring him back to sitting. That's when he noticed his mom wasn't pregnant. He stared at her stomach for a second before looking up at her, "But, but…" he stopped again, thinking, whatever was happening it didn't matter, he had only gone to the past for one reason, he needed to save Wyatt.

Leo moved directly in front of Chris and squatted to his eye level, "Chris, Gideon has been dead for twenty-three years."

Chris's head shot up, staring hard at his father, then he let his gaze travel around the room until he found his brother. Wyatt was standing, arms crossed with genuine concern on his face, Melinda was next to him, leaning into him a bit as they both watched Chris struggle to understand what was going on. Not that either of them understood, but Wyatt noticed that none of Chris's reactions seemed to be surprising or worrisome to his parents or aunts. Obviously they had in fact been hiding something from them all, something big.

Understanding spread across Chris's features and he looked from Wyatt to his parents, then to Bianca before burying his face in his hands and taking a few steadying breaths. He looked back up, "But, I don't remember," he said despondently.

Piper closed her eyes, visibly deflating. How could this happen? Her son sacrificed everything, _everything_ , to save his family, to save the world, and this is how the universe repays him?

Sensing Piper's distress, Phoebe stepped up, "You know, why don't I just take everyone downstairs Piper?" She smiled nervously, "You and Leo can…" she eyed Chris, scrunching her nose, "um get Chris up to speed, ok?" She looked around at everyone in the room, raising her eyebrows, "Ok, guys, off we go."

"Up to speed Phoebe? On _twenty-three years_?" Piper asked of her sister's hastily retreating back while the room emptied.

Chris shrugged, "Good to know Phoebe is as awkward as ever when she's nervous, I guess that doesn't change no matter what timeline you're in," he quirked, then laid back down on the bed, with a sigh. Looking confused, he began looking at his arms, then taking turns flexing different muscles while Piper and Leo watched, their own anxiety growing. He sat back up and then suddenly jumped to his feet and shook his head. "Pathetic, really. C'mon, did you not ever make us train?" he asked his bewildered parents. He looked from one to the other, "How do I manage to fight demons like this?"

Realizing war must have had some physical effects on Chris's body, Piper and Leo both felt foolish, just sitting there staring at Chris.

"Definitely going to have to fix this," Chris mumbled, still working different muscles. "So…" he looked at his parents, raising his eyebrows. "Bianca?"

Piper just shook her head, "You really don't remember anything? Anything?"

Chris took a deep breath, closing his eyes and cocking his head to the side as if he were trying to identify a faint sound. "I don't know," he finally said. "I remember being in a lot of pain, worried about Wyatt and you, Mom. I remember before that… and then… other things," he paused, thinking again. "It's weird, I can remember my life… er… my first life… but…" he stopped again, at a loss for how to describe what he was experiencing. "But, there's something else, they aren't memories though… more like, more like feelings. Feelings that don't fit though."

"Well," Leo started, "Maybe that is something… Chris, nothing like this has ever been done before, no one knows what to expect."

"But," Piper spoke up, "demons are, of course, trying to take advantage of it anyway."

"What do you mean?" Chris asked, noting the worry in his Mom's voice and the soft lines she'd accumulated around her eyes over the years- years he'd seemingly lost. Piper and Leo motioned for Chris to sit down, even if they didn't have the time or emotional capacity to get Chris up to speed on the last twenty-three years right this moment, they did at least need to get him up to speed on the current demon threat.

 

)0( )0( )0(

 

"Okay Aunt Phoebe, Aunt Paige, what the _hell_ is going on?" Wyatt demanded once they all made it downstairs.

Paige and Phoebe exchanged an uncomfortable look with each other, then looked around at the four pairs of eyes looking to them for answers, just as Brody quirked his head in response to a faint chiming.

"Saved by the jingle!" Paige exclaimed.

"Not for long," Brody deadpanned, then orbed away.

"Oh, I think this one might take a while," Phoebe, nervously laughed and elbowed Paige who just rolled her eyes and looked back at Wyatt.

"We're going to have to explain that," Paige motioned towards the rooms above with her hand.

"Well, I mean, maybe we can just wait. You know shouldn't their parents tell them?" Phoebe stalled, then panicked, "oh god we're going to have to tell _our_ kids…"

"Ok, now you're just freaking us out more," Melinda interrupted.

They'd known something was happening, hell, they'd expected something was going to happen for the last twenty-three years, but somehow they'd never quite planned on how to actually explain it. It all just sounded so ludicrous. Phoebe knew there were times over the years, when she was watching her nephews run around the Manor, she'd think back to Wyatt's first year and wonder if they'd just dreamed the whole thing up completely. Who goes back in time? And who believes it when someone says they are from the future? Ludicrous. She had no idea how they were going to explain this. How could they ever tell Wyatt what he might have become? And, god forbid, what if they all started getting memories from the original timeline? She shook her head, trying to focus back on the current moment.

Paige scrunched her mouth to the side, surveyed the worried faces around her, took a deep breath and went for it. "Ok, so yeah," she started, hands gesturing wildly, "your-brother-went-to-the-past-to-save-you-from-turning-evil-Wyatt-and-changed-the-timeline-so-much-he-nearly-erased-himself-and-now-we're-worried-that-karma's-gonna-catch-up-to-us-all-we-don't-know-what's-going-to-happen-and-of-course-demons-are-taking-advantage-of-the-worse-the-usual-crazy…" she let out another loud breath, nodding her head, hands on her hips, quite satisfied with her rushed explanation. At least until Wyatt and Melinda started laughing.

"What?! That's insane!" Wyatt exclaimed, nearly doubled over he was laughing so much.

Melinda wiped her eyes, still laughing. "It's fine," she said, "we get it, you're not comfortable explaining, but really, we aren't that stupid." She rolled her eyes one more time as she turned to leave the room. Phoebe and Paige just looked at each other, open-mouthed and at a complete loss.

 

)0( )0( )0(

 

_"Don't you get it Phoebe? Your way doesn't work," he said, pacing the ground, stirring up the dust._

_"Wyatt," she said, struggling against the magical bindings that had her pinned to the wall, "You can't do this!"_

_"I can't? Of course I can," Wyatt smiled, then practically pounced on his aunt, his handsome features twisting, almost feral. He could feel her nervous breath on his face as he studied her closely. "Your way got Mom killed."_

_Phoebe's expression steeled, "And now you're the one killing people Wyatt, good people. All this death, all this destruction won't bring her back."_

_Wyatt just laughed. "I'm the most powerful being ever," he shook his head for emphasis, "ever."_

_His aunt watched him strut away, he could feel her eyes poring into his back as he approached the figure leaning against the rock, hiding in the shadows. "Don't you dare try to help her Chris," Wyatt ground out as he pushed past his brother and then nodded to the demon waiting just beyond. The demon jumped at his chance, gleeful as he sped into the cave. Seconds later all Wyatt could hear were his aunt's screams, he smiled and kept walking._

Wyatt lay in his bed, face smushed into his pillow as the sun blasted into the window.

Brody hadn't returned to the Manor that night. It should have been Wyatt's first clue that something epic was happening. No, actually his first clue should have been his brother's mysterious wound fueled by an unknown poison created by an unknown elder. His second clue should have been the way Chris looked at Bianca when he and their parents finally made it downstairs and the strange way he bolted from the house, silencing all their calls.

And now an entire night of disturbing dreams. He could still hear the screams from the disjointed images swirling through his mind and the headache forming was worse than any hangover he'd ever had, but he forced himself up and stumbled over to Chris's doorway only to find an empty, unslept-in bed.

"Damn it," he cursed aloud to the empty room.

 

)0( )0( )0(

 

"How much time do we have?" Nomed glared at Trina. He hated the subway, and gods knew why she insisted they get to New York and insisted they take the subway, this particular line and this particular car. Trina shushed him with her hand, leaning around a nearby passenger, eyes alert.

"As much as you want, not enough" she mumbled, half to herself.

Nomed tried to control his frustration. He still didn't have all the relics and he had no idea how he was going to stage a complicated ancient ritual in the middle of the damn ocean. And now, now he was on a time clock. He could hear the seconds tick, tick, ticking away as the world ripped itself apart, getting ready to heal itself. Trina knew how frustrated Nomed was, she could feel his irritation rolling off of him in waves, it was delicious. Honestly, she could have gone on this particular errand alone, but she did enjoy toying with him and watching his handsome face as he worked to control his temper. Nomed could learn a thing or two from the demon they were headed to see though, she thought. She despised this particular young demon's physical appearance, she would never understand his fondness for megasize slurpees or his fascination with human technology but he did have his uses. She fingered the ancient box she'd brought through the Otherworlds and knew Myroq was the perfect demon to help her get this precious trinket into the unwitting hands of that pesky Phoenix who landed herself smack dab in the middle of the Halliwell brothers.


	11. Chapter XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter post! I hope you enjoy! I just bought my first house and I have a lovely front porch perfect for coffee and writing... I hope to be able to update a bit more often, we shall see. Thank you for the reviews, I love hearing everyone's thoughts, comments and critiques. Read on...

)0( )0( )0(

The tension in the anteroom to the Elder's formal chambers was so thick Brody thought he could squish his fingers through it if he tried. Looking around, the area was packed with more whitelighters than he had ever seen. _I guess they have some special enlargement charm on this place_ , he mused as he was jostled through the crowd. Brody had seen the world almost end at least a few times now, but never had he seen the entire heavens filled with what seemed to be every single whitelighter in existence.

The overlarge, gilded doors swung open to reveal nearly a dozen, serious-faced Elders. Studying their tense faces, he felt pride and relief for telling them to shove those gold robes up their asses when he demoted himself back to a mere whitelighter all those years ago, which, upon reflection could explain the cruel irony of his Halliwell assignment. His musings turned to shock though as he realized standing with the Elders were the Angels of Destiny. One of which stepped forward, clearing her throat as the others repositioned themselves around her.

"Thank you all for answering the summons," she began, magically controlling her voice so it sounded as if she was speaking to each whitelighter directly. "An unprecedented event is taking place in our world," she continued, but Brody shortly stopped listening to the flowery, overly-adjectived preamble.

He caught quite a few 'epic proportions' and 'catastrophic consequences' thrown into the speech and wondered how long the other whitelighters' attention would hold. Surely it couldn't be that difficult just to stand up and say ' _hey, one of those damn Halliwells went back in time and epically altered history and now we have to deal with the catastrophic consequences'_ and just be done with it? Brody was startled out of his thoughts when he heard frantic whispered conversations start popping up from the crowd.

"Wait, what did she just say?" He asked the young whitelighter next to him.

The woman looked at him, eyeing him like she thought he was a particularly nasty spider, "Get comfortable."

"Why?" Brody continued, the woman looking more exasperated.

"Because, they're putting us to sleep?" She paused, then continued, seeing Brody's persistent confusion. "The Elders decided it was best to allow us to regain access to memories from this other timeline all at once, rather than the slow progression like everyone else."

Brody gaped at her, then looked up at the Elders in disbelief. The entire heavens was covered in the bodies of whitelighters, peacefully laying down to have their minds jacked with. _Maybe I did join a cult after all_ , Brody thought wryly.

)0( )0( )0(

_He knew Eta was here, he'd tracked her this far. Brody took a deep, calming breath, focusing his whitelighter senses on the energies around him, waiting, feeling, reaching out. He slowly opened his eyes, someone was coming, but it wasn't Eta. Suddenly, he saw a young man, perhaps not even beyond his teens, his blond hair slightly disheveled, striding purposefully into the chamber._

_"Okay, Eta," the young man spoke into the darkness. Ah! He was looking for her too Brody realized, quickly he decided to take a chance, if the boy was an Avatar he had a potion and if he wasn't, well, he could handle that. The boy turned on him before he'd even finished moving, eyes flashing with power and malice. Brody realized too late, he had gravely underestimated the being standing before him._

_He threw his hands up in the universal sign of surrender, "Sorry, I, I, just," Brody tried to look casually around as he spoke and slowly edged away from the boy, but he was thrown against the wall and held in place by an invisible force. He started to orb, but was blocked, and rematerialized in place. The boy's eyes shone with excitement and Brody wasn't sure if he felt terrified or relieved._

_"You're a whitelighter," the boy said flatly and then paused, letting the silence grow._

_"Stop it Wyatt," Eta said, appearing in solid form, walking towards the boy. She faltered though when she saw Kyle, her eyes sweeping over him, scanning for any sign of the potion he was rumored to have._

_Wyatt noticed her hesitation, he turned his head just enough to acknowledge her, but refused to take his attention away from Brody. Kyle swallowed nervously, eyeing the Avatar and the boy, Wyatt, who had him trapped. "Now why would I stop Eta? Unless, of course…" Wyatt suddenly dropped his hold on Brody, grabbing Eta around the waist and giving Brody the opportunity to strike._

_Brody didn't disappoint. Without even taking a breath, Kyle had the precious potion out and thrown at Eta. He watched as the black smoke furled into her nostrils, her mouth, her eyes, destroying her from the inside-out._

_The boy laughed._

Kyle Brody tossed a bit, moaning, unable to wake up from the Elder-induced sleep.

" _Wyatt, I've tracked two more Avatars," Brody began._

_Wyatt, leaning over a table, scattered with maps and handwritten notes, glanced up quickly, then back down to the map he was poring over._

_"The Avatars are not our concern right now, Kyle," Wyatt said in that particular way he had, so calmly yet every syllable pregnant with threat._

_Brody wasn't about to back down though, he hadn't become Lord Wyatt's most trusted advisor by sitting back and blindly following Wyatt Halliwell. No, he'd spent the last three years by the young man's side helping his cause, helping him build a new world beyond good and evil, a world the Avatars could never build, despite all their false promises, by speaking his mind and following his instincts._

_"I know Wy…"_

_"Damn it Brody! Not right now." Wyatt interrupted. "I've had another tracker go missing and my brother's damn 'resistance' just killed two of my best fighters in a skirmish yesterday." Wyatt slammed his fists onto the table._

_Brody didn't flinch, just a curt nod and a quick turn to walk out of the room. Before he got very far though, the building shuddered slightly, a quick succession of expansions and contractions rippling through and around the walls. Wyatt, looked around, hands up, ready for anything._

_"No, no… he can't, he couldn't…" Wyatt stammered._

_Cracks began forming in the wall, ice-blue light shining through, then suddenly two figures appeared._

_"Devren! Now!" The dark-haired young man shouted. Brody spun around to see a darklighter take aim and shoot, his arrow finding its way into a shocked Wyatt's shoulder. The witchlighter began TKing the furniture in the room to create more confusion until another figure appeared, a woman carrying something large and limp._

_"I got her! Go, go, go!" The woman shouted before shimmering out._

_Wyatt yelled out in pain, as the darklighter poison began working through his bloodstream and sending Brody into action. Kyle leapt over the fallen table, orbed the darklighter's arrow away and began healing Wyatt. By the time he looked back up, Devren and the witchlighter were already gone._

_"Damn it," Wyatt ground out as he sat up, rotating his shoulder. "They got Kat."_

Brody had no idea how long he'd been out, but he slowly opened his eyes, the bright light around him almost as painful as the dizzying cacophony of memories fighting for space in his mind. He sat up, some of the whitelighters had already disappeared, others were still completely unconscious and others, like him were looking dumbly around, in shock. He took a breath, exhaling loudly as he tried to make sense of the flood of emotions and memories.

"Well, shit," he said before orbing away.

)0( )0( )0(

"I'm coming, coming," Paige grouched as she made her way to the door. Opening it, she was surprised to see her oldest nephew standing outside, looking haggard. "Wyatt! God, you look rough. Get in here."

"Gee, thanks Aunt Paige," Wyatt tried to smile. "Terrible headache," he added.

Paige just eyed him, knowingly as he followed her into her kitchen. She poured him a fresh cup of coffee, then headed to the fridge and added a healthy dose of Bailey's before handing it over to him.

"So, whaddya dream last night bucko?" She asked, crossing her arms and leaning back against the counter.

Wyatt looked up at her, "how'd you know?" He asked.

"Because I told you what was happening," Paige responded, shaking her head and barely restraining herself from adding a pronounced duh to the end of her statement.

Wyatt rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, he just wanted to unsee it, he wanted to get rid of the images, forget them completely. And his aunt wanted him to tell her what he saw. Unbidden, snippets of the dreams flashed through his mind. Phoebe being tortured at his command. Paige bloody and crying over a fallen, lifeless Henry. Chris, oh god, Chris…blood, so much blood again and again and again. Bianca dying. And the smiling face of an Elder with a pierced ear he called Gideon.

Wyatt looked up, gulped down as much of the spiked coffee as he could, then shook his head, "I can't, Aunt Paige… I can't."

Paige waited, silent, watching her nephew struggle.

He locked eyes with her, "Please tell me that wasn't real, please," he pleaded, tears starting to form in his eyes.

Paige, trying to keep her own emotions in check, stepped towards him, leaning across the kitchen island. "I can't," she said. "I don't know what all you saw Wy, but I can't tell you it wasn't real."

Wyatt closed his eyes, she could see the pain ripping through him. "Wy, even though its real- YOU didn't do those things, you have to understand that, you have to believe that."

"How can I? I don't even have any context for any of it, just random bits and pieces…" he started, an edge to his voice Paige recognized from her own dream the night before. "How? Why?..." he trailed off, turning his head to look out the window. "Everyone is going to remember, everyone will know what I… who I…" he couldn't even finish.

"Yeah… I think you may have destroyed New York kiddo," Paige deadpanned, attempting levity. Wyatt snapped his head around to stare at her, open-mouthed, horrified. Paige's half-smile vanished. "Uh, well, I mean, that's one possibility, you know, like you said no context or anything yet. I mean someone else could have…" she trailed off. God, she was bad at this. _Why did Wyatt have to choose me to come to? Phoebe's the one he should be talking to, unless of course he killed Phoebe…. Nah…_

Wyatt stood up, shaking his head, his jaw set in determination. "I can't, I can't deal with this, Aunt Paige…" and he orbed out of the kitchen.

"Dammit Wyatt," she yelled after his orbs.

)0( )0( )0(

Chris didn't even startle as Bianca materialized next to him atop the steel megastructure holding up the bridge the below. He hoped she instinctively knew where to find him, that she remembered, that she remembered what they had and why he had done this. He didn't go back in time just to save his family, that was a happy by-product of course, but really, the driving motivator was her. It was always her.

He schooled his expression, ensuring no traces of his warring emotions were evident.

"You know, trying to track you is a bitch," Bianca said, as she sat down next to him, gazing out over the city. Chris didn't respond, didn't even look at her, he didn't think he could. After a long silence, Bianca took a deep breath. "I dreamed about a park last night," she paused, still staring off in the distance.

Chris closed his eyes, how much did she remember? He clenched his jaw, trying to stop the onslaught of memories. Memories from someone else's life, he reminded himself. He tried to search his mind, tried to grasp for memories from this life, his real life now. That was what he'd been focusing on all night, sitting on the bridge as the sun slowly rose, willing himself to remember, sorting through a flood of conflicting emotions and wisps of memory. Mom, lifeless on the floor of the manor. Mom, smiling at his graduation. Leo disregarding his concerns about Wyatt. Dad, showing him how to rebuild the engine of that old truck. Back and forth, back and forth. And now Bianca, here, dreaming about the park, their park, their spot.

"Tell me," she said, "I need to know."

Chris shook his head, "Bianca," he paused, his voice almost pleading. "I… I…" he shook his head again.

Bianca studied him closely, concerned and confused. Her dreams the night before had been so vivid, so real, but they were only bits and pieces of a life she hadn't actually lived.

"Did I…" she started, "did we…" she swallowed and looked back out over the horizon, watching the fog rise, feeling emotions she didn't understand. Finally she laughed softly, turning back to Chris, "This is just weird, isn't it?"

Chris smiled, cocking his head to the side and looking at her. "Yeah, I guess it is."

She looked at him, her eyes sparkling with mischief, relieved the awkward tension was starting to ease. "So, honestly how good was the sex?"

Chris's eyes went wide and he barked a short laugh, "oh, so THAT time at the park, that's the memory the universe chooses to give you."

Bianca laughed softly too, "yep, it wasn't what I expected- but you didn't answer my question," she teased.

"I'm not going to," Chris said firmly, but with a smile ghosting his face, "you're dating my brother."

"Yeah… what a mess," Bianca said, shaking her head. "Chris," her voice turned serious again, "obviously I don't remember everything yet, but… but I am remembering the feelings. I don't know how I'm- we're- going to sort through this, I don't know…" She turned to look him at again, "I know where Wyatt and I stood yesterday, but now… it's going to take some time. And besides, you don't particularly like me all that much this time around." She winked at him.

Chris looked at her, thinking, "That's hard to believe."

"Nope, it's true- we fight, a lot. You don't trust me either," she paused for a second and then took his hand. "I can't imagine what this is like for you though… and, I just, there is going to be a lot to figure out… and we've got this whole end-of-world thing happening." She sighed, frustrated.

Chris squeezed her hand, then let go, "I know, more important things to focus on, right?"

"It's not that Chris, it's just I'm still Bianca from this timeline, I'm not her, not right now. Maybe I'll become more like the Bianca you're in love with, I don't know. But right now, I'm not her."

Chris looked at her intently, she was right. She wasn't his Bianca, she hadn't lived through a war and torture, she didn't have the same scars, scars he remembered intimately, many of them caused by Wyatt. The woman before him wasn't her, not quite. He shook his head, "I know, I know."

He took her hand and squeezed it one more time before orbing away.


End file.
